Pfister Award Winner Describes Brief Psychotherapy Modules for Hope in the Midst of Demoralization

Hope is a natural antidote to despair and demoralization experienced by psychiatric patients that can be encouraged and supported through brief “hope” interventions that can be employed in crisis situations, according to James L. Griffith, M.D. Griffith delivered APA’s 2017Oskar Pfister Award lecture today at IPS: The Mental Health Services Conference in New Orleans.Griffith, the chair of psychiatry at George Washington University (GWU) School of Medicine, described his work developing brief intervention modules that help patients practice hope in demoralizing life situations and that can be taught to trainees and other mental health clinicians. His work on the subject was published in anarticle inAcademic Psychiatry (July 2017).“Despair from demoralization is a constant threat to patients with chronic mental illnesses, refugees fleeing persecution, elderly who are socially isolated, the medically disabled, and other marginalized or displaced people,” Griffith said.Griffith said that he and his colleagues have identified 14 discrete psychotherapeutic practices, or interventions, in the psychotherapy literature that foster hope in patients. These practices correspond to one of four types of coping (problem solving and goal seeking, activating a core identity, emotion regulation, and relational coping) that clinicians can use depending on the strengths of the specific patient. Moreover, they can be employed in a crisis situation without formal psychotherapeutic traini...
Source: Psychiatr News - Category: Psychiatry Tags: 2017 IPS: The Mental Health Services Conference; APA George Washington University School of Medicine. James L. Griffith M.D. New Orleans Oscar Pfisker Award Source Type: research