Search

abstract This paper reviews the place of the therapeutic community in the mental health field, using a sociological framework to understand some key factors that have shaped the field and its response to this approach to therapy. The therapeutic community treatment method in mental health has been contested over the years. It has challenged conventional professional frameworks, it has dealt with a difficult client group, and it has been hostile to or at least awkward about establishing its evidence base. In this paper I reflect on the 'politics of evidence' in contested fields. I draw on the analysis of 'fields' from the work of French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, and the analysis of scientific knowledge from an area of the social study of science, 'actor-network theory'. I argue that evidence is not neutral in contested fields, and that the technology of trials is not balanced with a theoretically informed understanding of the phenomena under scrutiny (causality versus meaning). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last several decades single session psychotherapy has become a mainstream psychotherapeutic approach. A steadily increasing demand for psychotherapeutic services and a continuous reduction in mental health care resources worldwide are both largely responsible for this development. This paper describes single session psychotherapy and provides a brief review of the relevant literature. Single session psychotherapy delivered in walk-in settings is also discussed. Therapists who are unfamiliar with single session psychotherapy will find that this paper provides a concise introduction to the essential processes and outcomes of this psychotherapeutic approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the process of selecting the papers published in the 20th anniversary issue of the journal "British Journal of Psychotherapy." List of articles published in the previous issues of the journal.

Copyright of Family Process is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The concluding paper in this series provides brief reflections from a range of key individuals involved in the development and interpretation of CORE benchmarks for NHS primary care psychological therapy and counselling services. Michael Barkham firstly reflects on some of the research challenges facing the use of benchmarks derived from practice-based evidence, before acknowledging the potential for such data to help bridge the research-practice gap as we learn the best use of it. Geoff Mothersole considers similar challenges in using real world data, and explores some of the challenges that managers face in using benchmarks for improved service management practice. Barry McInnes increases the magnification in his reflective focus and looks at the juxtaposition of national guideline recommendations from evidence-based practice in contrast to those introduced by the growing practice evidence-base suggesting differential therapist effectiveness. The first of two final strategic reflective perspectives includes Richard Evans's summary of some of the hidden lessons from the benchmarking endeavour to-date, before my own personal concluding summary looking at lessons learned for the on-going strategic development of enhanced support for routine quality evaluation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Analytical Psychology is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Presents abstracts of several articles on psychiatry. "Thirty Years of Abdominal Pain"; "Vulnerability, Affect, and Depth in Group Psychotherapy"; "The Evolution of psychotherapy in Western Europe."

This article discusses the much-misunderstood Tarasoff decision that requires psychotherapists to protect third parties from patients' violent acts. Through a normative approach, the paper analyzes four important issues: what to do when potential victims are unknown; what to do about the fact that the patients' potential for violence may be incorrectly perceived; the value of warning potential victims; and, the problem of discharging potentially violent patients from the hospital. The author proposes that the courts adopt a more flexible substantial departure test in most cases that involve psychiatric negligence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes a family in which bulimia nervosa has been present in four children. Discussion about the possible reasons for the development of bulimia in this family includes the importance of secrecy as a boundary-making function in family systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops the assumptions that underlie a transactional approach to psychotherapy by utilizing Bentley's ideas about the environed organism. It emphasizes that not only is interpersonal interaction significant therapeutically but the situational aspect of persons and behavior (living, working, neighborhood, and community circumstances) contribute to the process of client change and growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the usefulness of reception and recall checks in the development and implementation of client pretherapy orientation procedures. Although high scores on such measures do not indicate that the ideas presented in the orientation have been fully grasped or internalized, they do demonstrate that clients have been able to attend to and, in a basic sense, to understand, or receive, the material. Retention of the information can be assessed by readministration at a later point. It is hoped that the employment of manipulation checks of this kind can facilitate the identification of processes through which orientations work.

Discusses the issue of confidentiality of the psychotherapeutic process during the British Confederation of Psychoterapists (BCP) conference, A Question of Confidence: Privacy Under Pressure in March 2003. Legislation affecting mental health; Intention of BCP conference; Reason for the decision of BCP to focus on the protection of confidentiality.

Three ideas are discussed from the vantage point of accelerated experiential dynamic psychotherapy (AEDP): Quantum changes operate not only in trauma, but also in healing; attachment plays a major role in whether fear or excitement is the response to novelty; experientially exploring the experience of transformation can itself lead to quantum change. Vignettes from an AEDP session show a patient's grappling with the startling novelty of experience that the transformational process, particularly when occurring in quantum leaps, evokes, and illustrate the phenomenology of cascading transformations. They illustrate how the therapist's emotional engagement and attachment orientation, experiential techniques, and metatherapeutic processing activate state transformations and entrain adaptive healing processes. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Clin Psychol: In Session 62: 569–583, 2006. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article profiles the development of an evolving common CORE methodology related to the paradigm of quality evaluation. It profiles the five defining characteristics that currently help to inform that common methodology. The first of these characteristics is the use of CORE-PC to help store, organise, filter, report and undertake performance appraisals using CORE System data. The second is the role of preparatory training to help overcome the common experience of service performance anxiety in services adopting CORE-PC. The third characteristic is the use of a common reporting framework that generates internal performance indicators by which relative service and individual practitioner performance can be contrasted. Fourth is the co-development and use of national service performance indicators created by the voluntary donation of anonymised, aggregated data. The fifth and final characteristic informing the shared methodology is the development of CORE Networks to support the interpretation and utilisation of benchmarks for enhancing service quality. The conclusions acknowledge the relative youth of both the activity and learning, but suggests that the common methodology used by the CORE Network has considerable potential to help identify, share and develop excellence in psychological therapy and counselling services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to the numerous conceptual, methodological, and ethical problems that are associated with placebo conditions in psychotherapy research, their use should be abandoned, and more powerful therapy outcome designs (dismantling, additive, parametric, and catalytic) that can contribute to basic knowledge through their ability to isolate specific cause-and-effect relationships are recommended. On the other hand, if indeed the placebo effect is a reliable phenomenon, it would be wise to pursue its causal mechanisms, and some research strategies for initiating such pursuit are briefly described. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Clin Psychol 61: 805–818, 2005. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Every theory of psychotherapy is composed of a myth and an associated ritual. A myth is a conceptual scheme for explaining clinical problems. A ritual is based upon a myth and is a model of the clinical change process. This article goes far beyond the observation that theories of psychotherapy consist of a myth and a ritual to propose that they share a common underlying structure. The central purpose of this article is to delineate this structure. This structure constitutes a metamodel of theories of psychotherapy. The article shows how the metamodel is a fresh conceptual tool (a) for understanding, analysing, comparing and contrasting, and integrating the basic concepts and principles of theories of psychotherapy and (b) for building case formulations and treatment plans from a theory of psychotherapy. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]