Journal of Psychotherapy Integration This is an RSS file. You can use it to subscribe to this data in your favourite RSS reader or to display this data on your own website or blog.

Psychotherapy of personality disorders needs an integrative theory of personality.
Empirical and theoretical work on revisions of the major diagnostic classification systems, DSM–IV and ICD-10, have revealed a need for a unifying theory of personality and personality disorders. A recent comparison by Gunderson, Masland, and Choi-Kain (2018), of different treatment strategies (and accompanying theories) for borderline personality disorder speaks to the same need. In this article we ask if Otto Kernberg’s (2016) outline in his seminal paper “What Is Personality” might be such a common theoretical ground. We perform a critical analysis of Kernberg’s contribution and suggest a common theoretical pl...
Source: Journal of Psychotherapy Integration - March 2, 2020 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research

Association between patient-provider racial and ethnic concordance and patient-centered communication in outpatient mental health clinics.
This study examines whether there are differences in emotion focused PCC between racial/ethnic concordant (n = 55) and discordant (n = 36) dyads in a sample of behavioral health providers (n = 34) and their patients (n = 91) recruited from community mental health care settings as part of a larger study. PCC was measured using three items from a novel third-party coding system on whether providers “identified feelings,” “accepted feelings,” and “encouraged emotional expression” of the patient. Three separate mixed linear regression analyses were conducted to assess relationships between racially/ethnically conco...
Source: Journal of Psychotherapy Integration - January 16, 2020 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research

Integrating responsive motivational interviewing with cognitive–behavioral therapy (CBT) for generalized anxiety disorder: Direct and indirect effects on interpersonal outcomes.
Responsively adding motivational interviewing (MI) to cognitive–behavioral therapy (CBT) for generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) has outperformed CBT alone on follow-up worry reduction (Westra, Constantino, & Antony, 2016), with this long-term effect on the cardinal feature of worry being mediated by less patient midtreatment resistance in MI-CBT (Constantino, Westra, Antony, & Coyne, 2019). Insofar as GAD can also be marked by interpersonal problems of nonassertiveness and over accommodation, we tested these same direct and indirect effects on these diagnostically salient interpersonal outcomes. Eighty-five patients with...
Source: Journal of Psychotherapy Integration - December 12, 2019 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research

Moving beyond a single-model philosophy: Integrating relational therapies in front-line psychological therapy services in England.
This article critically reflects on controversial aspects of the English service model of frontline psychological therapies. The Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) program in England has had worldwide influence and embodied core psychotherapy debates between clinical practice, research evidence, and politics. The article initially focuses on the definition of evidence-based therapy in the program and the resulting dominance of protocol-based, specific-disorder, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), which has ostracized other treatment models. The medical model, the outcome research paradigm, and the English c...
Source: Journal of Psychotherapy Integration - October 31, 2019 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research

A constructionist extension of the contextual model: Ritual, charisma, and client fit.
This article uses a cross-profession analysis and a Berger-Luckmann perspective on mental health models to argue the constructionism is the best explanatory model for their results. Hypothesizing that psychotherapy primarily operates in constructed reality permits and mandates extensions of both the contextual theory and deliberate practice; more specifically, pragmatic recommendations are offered in the area of ease of change, creating and carrying out therapeutic rituals, and deliberate practice and FIT. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: Journal of Psychotherapy Integration)
Source: Journal of Psychotherapy Integration - October 14, 2019 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research

Contemplative psychotherapy: Clinician mindfulness, Buddhist psychology, and the therapeutic common factors.
Contemplative psychotherapy (CP) is a counseling discipline that integrates psychotherapy training, clinician mindfulness, and Buddhism. This review articulates CP as developed at Naropa University, contextualizes its core concepts and practices with regard to the common therapeutic factors, and briefly reviews the Buddhist frameworks, theories of pathology, and interventions that characterize CP. The foundation of CP training is clinician mindfulness and compassion. Because of its integrative approach to developing these therapeutic traits in clinicians, aspects of CP have the potential to enhance the common factors and t...
Source: Journal of Psychotherapy Integration - October 14, 2019 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research

Innovative moments and session impact in brief integrative psychotherapy: An exploratory study.
The present study examined the emergence of innovative moments in Brief Integrative Psychotherapy based on Hill’s 3-stage model, in a small sample of clients. Innovative moments are markers of client change in which the problem or problems that have caused client suffering are challenged. Previous studies, with different models of psychotherapy, have supported the hypothesis that therapy sessions of recovered clients have more innovative moments than therapy sessions of unchanged clients. Moreover, it has been shown that the emergence of innovative moments in one session were better predictors of a symptom’s change in ...
Source: Journal of Psychotherapy Integration - October 3, 2019 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research

Psychotherapy techniques related to therapist alliance among adolescents with eating disorders: The utility of integration.
This study is the 1st to explore specific therapeutic techniques clinicians find helpful in establishing and maintaining alliance with adolescents with eating disorders. Data was collected from 107 experienced therapists (Myears = 16) currently treating an eating-disordered adolescent. Therapists held degrees in various disciplines in mental health (MA, MS, MSW, MHC, PhD, PsyD) or in medicine (MD), who came from various theoretical orientations (cognitive–behavioral [CB] = 46.7%, psychodynamic = 13.1%, interpersonal = 13.1%, family = 7.5%, humanistic = 3.7%, and other = 15.9%). Therapists rated the utility of various psy...
Source: Journal of Psychotherapy Integration - September 30, 2019 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research

Movement synchrony and attachment related anxiety and avoidance in social anxiety disorder.
This study examines the association between attachment, social anxiety/avoidance, and movement synchrony. One hundred patients with social anxiety disorder were examined, of which n = 57 were treated with cognitive–behavioral therapy (CBT) and n = 43 with psychodynamic therapy. Symptoms were assessed using the Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale, while attachment-related anxiety and avoidance was assessed using the Experience in Close Relationships Questionnaire (ECR-R). Body movements were extracted from videos of the 8th session via motion energy analysis. Synchrony frequency and time lag were determined using time series a...
Source: Journal of Psychotherapy Integration - September 23, 2019 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research

Clients’ perceptions of positive regard across four therapeutic orientations.
Discussion of these results focuses on the complexity involved in determining which forms of PR work best for which kinds of clients in which kinds of psychotherapy. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: Journal of Psychotherapy Integration)
Source: Journal of Psychotherapy Integration - August 1, 2019 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research

Case formulation and treatment planning: How to take care of relationship and symptoms together.
Most patients present with a combination of symptoms and relational problems, but often psychotherapies are not conducted in a way to deal with both. Many therapists take a top-down approach to treatments. That is, the techniques they use are based on their theories of therapy (that suggest how certain diagnoses should be treated) rather than on an understanding of the unique problems and issues of the individual patient. We suggest that what is needed is a bottom-up approach, in which the individual patient’s goals, conflicts, inhibitions, and so forth are identified and therapeutic interventions are designed accordingl...
Source: Journal of Psychotherapy Integration - July 25, 2019 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research

When East meets West: A randomized controlled trial and pre- to postprogram evaluation replication of the effects of insight-based mindfulness on psychological well-being.
Mindfulness training has been incorporated into a variety of Western psychological therapies. However, Western psychological applications of mindfulness typically have not included 2 aspects of mindfulness central to traditional Buddhist teachings from which mindfulness is derived: first, that mindfulness is used to develop insights, and second that mindfulness enhances positive well-being, rather than just reducing psychological distress. Two studies evaluated the effects on positive well-being of the Insight-Based Mindfulness Program (IBMP), which extends the well-established Western mindfulness programs to incorporate t...
Source: Journal of Psychotherapy Integration - June 17, 2019 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research

Coping with the terminal illness of a colleague in a mental health organization.
This article is about the struggle with terminal cancer of a founding member of the Aiglé Foundation, María Teresa Nieto. The aim is to describe the role that the integrative psychotherapy model (MIP; Fernández-Álvarez, 1992/2001, 2008) played in supporting her and the organization in coming to terms with her illness and subsequent death in May 2017 by developing coping strategies and constructing healthy meanings to face this painful circumstance. María Teresa enjoyed a long and distinguished career as a clinical psychologist. At Aigle Foundation, she worked as a couples therapist and clinical supervisor. Along with ...
Source: Journal of Psychotherapy Integration - May 30, 2019 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research

Pregnancy and disability: Therapist transitions and transformations.
This article explores how therapist pregnancies, pregnancy-related disability, and the birth of a child with genetic differences contributed to personal and professional transformations in the therapist. Through reflections on 4 case vignettes, this article illustrates features of the experience of being a pregnant therapist. Several aspects of therapist transformation in the context of pregnancy and pregnancy-related disability are considered: (a) deepened understanding of unconscious communication in the therapeutic relationship, (b) the development of resilience and acknowledgment of personal and professional limitation...
Source: Journal of Psychotherapy Integration - May 30, 2019 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research

You too, me too: My professional development and transformation as a psychotherapist.
This article will explore the development of my dual professional roles, how my psychoanalytic orientation informed my work with juvenile sexual perpetrators, and how my work with perpetrators both informed and collided with my private psychoanalytic practice. I will provide clinical illustrations, using pseudonyms for my clients and deidentifying and disguising their material, while retaining their dynamics and clinical process. I will share some of what I learned about them and, ultimately, some surprising things I learned about myself in the process. These insights were transformative in that they shed light on both my ...
Source: Journal of Psychotherapy Integration - May 30, 2019 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research