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We outline a context-centered therapy approach to helping clients cope with the coronavirus pandemic. Context-centered therapy is a constructivist approach that emphasizes shifts in an individual's contexts as the best way to generate therapeutic change. Contexts are defined as sets of presuppositions that shape a person's experiences. We examine how two very common contexts, mind and self, can inform therapists' understanding of how their clients are responding to the coronavirus pandemic. The mind consists of a person's defensive and protective postures in the face of perceived threat, whereas the self takes a broader perspective and emphasizes human connections and interrelatedness. Therapists can use several mind/self contrasts—blame versus responsibility, insufficiency versus sufficiency, being at effect versus being at cause, and avoidance versus mastery—to assist people who are struggling in the face of the coronavirus pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Children and adolescents in a summer tennis instruction program were taught a "metaphor method" for eliminating distractions and detrimental ideation. They visualized themselves enclosed in a bubble, cocoon, or chrysalis that separated them from nontask stimuli. Although subjects in the experimental and control groups were positive in their evaluations of their tennis experience, ratings from instructors demonstrated multiple advantages of the metaphor method. When compared to control group subjects receiving regular instruction, students taught to use boundary metaphors improved significantly in terms of performance criteria and ability to concentrate. Their instructors also rated them significantly higher in enjoyment of the experience, motivation, and a display of mature and appropriate behavior. The method was easy to implement and appears adaptable to a variety of sports and other performance settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we draw on our experiences as therapists and supervisors to highlight the errors new clinicians tend to make and how they can be avoided. A critical issue is how to approach the client's narrative. We propose a stance of “respectful skepticism,” in which the factors that shape the client's truth can best be appreciated. This represents amiddle waybetween gullible listener and prosecuting attorney. We also discuss common problems with client motivation, as well as the changing role of feelings in therapy, the importance of the therapeutic contract, the high cost of defensiveness, the concept of conversational domains, and the advantages of avoiding therapeutic platitudes, explanatory fictions, and jargon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article talks about the future of the field of constructivist psychotherapy. The psychotherapy methods that have been used by clinicians are mentioned, including systematic desensitization, empty chair technique and invariant prescription. The opinions of psychologists Carl Rogers (1956) and Jerome Bruner on the constructivist perspectives of psychologist George Kelly are also presented.

Motivational interviewing is a widely used treatment, introduced by William Miller in 1983. The original target of the method was substance use disorders, but it has since been used to address a variety of other mental health concerns. Because it was developed inductively from clinical insights rather than deductively from a set of theoretical postulates, practitioners have had difficulty understanding how or why the method works. Previous attempts to fill that theoretical gap have not been fully successful. Thus, in this article, we apply principles of structure determinism, a constructivist model, in an attempt to clarify how core aspects of motivational interviewing function and how the method might be strengthened. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores weather fearful individuals be instructed to proceed quickly or cautiously. Controversy surrounds precisely which elements in the approach situation are of importance in determining outcome. For example, many proponents of systematic desensitization include procedures to maintain muscular relaxation in the individual. In the present study, the efficacy of these different instructional sets was compared by providing Ss who were afraid to handle a snake or a cockroach with an opportunity to approach a live specimen under conditions that emphasized caution, speed, or self-determination of pace.

Current issues in alcoholism theory and treatment are reevaluated in terms of structure determinism, a theory of living systems proposed by Chilean biologist Humberto Maturana. This theory emphasized the central role of language in human affairs. From this perspective, it becomes crucial to distinguish between the linguistic and operational domains of explanation. Failure to make this distinktion appears to have prolonged unprofitable debates in the field about issues of control, self-control, and related concepts. Suggestions are offered concerning the generation of new language possibilities for dealing with alcoholism. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]