Author
Joshua K. Swift, Ph.D.
16 articles
President’s Column 61 (2)
The Value of Belonging As President, I often get the opportunity to talk to individuals about why they should be members of the Society for the Advancement of Psychotherapy (SAP). My rationale typically reflects a list of tangibles or concrete benefits that they will receive as a result of joining the division. These include access […]
Joshua K. Swift, Ph.D.
April 8, 2026
President Column (61) 1: The Power of Volunteering within Our Profession
I was participating in a Department Chairs meeting within my college a few months back when we came to the topic of finding external reviewers for promotion and tenure candidates. For those who might be unfamiliar with this process, in most universities when a faculty member goes up for promotion and/or tenure, the department chair […]
Joshua K. Swift, Ph.D.
January 5, 2026
Is Sharing Recordings of Sessions with Clients a Good or Bad Idea?
Many therapists choose to record their sessions for record keeping purposes or to facilitate supervision in training settings. While reviewing recordings may be helpful for therapists and supervisors to facilitate growth and development, could they also be useful for clients? In a recent study, King and Boswell (2021) asked this question by surveying a sample […]
Megan Jensen + 1 more
April 25, 2021
Using Initial Client Speech Markers to Predict the Quality of the Alliance Later in Psychotherapy
Psychotherapy research has consistently indicated that the quality of the therapeutic alliance is one of the most reliable predictors of treatment outcomes. Indeed, clients with a weaker alliance to their therapist tend to make less progress in therapy and/or prematurely dropout. In a recent study, Nof, Amir, Goldstein, and Zilcha-Mana (2020) attempted to predict the […]
Joshua K. Swift, Ph.D. + 1 more
February 21, 2021
Self-care Strategies for a Psychotherapy Researcher
In the research world, we often hear the mantra publish or perish. It serves as a reminder that careers and advancements depend on research productivity and contributions to the field. However, right around the time I accepted my first academic position, I stumbled upon a book cover that caught my eye. It was a series […]
Joshua K. Swift, Ph.D.
November 12, 2019
An MTurk Primer for Psychotherapy Researchers
In recent years, psychology researchers have begun to use online methods for participant recruitment and data collection. One of the most popular online methods is Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (MTurk), an online crowdsourcing website. To get a glance of its popularity, we recently did a Google Scholar search using the keyword “Mechanical Turk” (see Figure 1 […]
Kelley A. Tompkins, M.S. + 1 more
September 2, 2019
The Future of Psychotherapy Research
While an impressive amount of knowledge has been gathered so far from psychotherapy process and outcome research (see Lambert, 2013), there are still many unanswered questions and areas of needed additional attention. Some of these remaining questions focus on clarifying currently unanswered debates in the field; others represent ways to improve current outcomes; and some […]
Kelley A. Tompkins, M.S. + 1 more
April 15, 2019
Does Having Clients and Therapists Practice Mindfulness Together Have a Positive Impact on Psychotherapy Sessions?
Over the past decade, the practice of mindfulness has received a significant amount of attention in the psychotherapy research literature. The existing research on mindfulness has demonstrated that it can produce positive health and mental health benefits for psychotherapy clients (Davis & Hayes, 2011). A smaller body of research has also demonstrated that the practice […]
Joshua K. Swift, Ph.D. + 1 more
December 6, 2018
Publishing Psychotherapy Research
Throughout 2017, the Psychotherapy Research Committee and the Scholarship Domain have been providing Psychotherapy Bulletin articles with recommendations for sharing our research with others. In the first Bulletin issue of the year, we included suggestions for sharing our research with policy makers. In the second issue, we focused on sharing our research with psychotherapy clients. […]
Joshua K. Swift, Ph.D. + 1 more
December 30, 2017
Paying Attention to the Details
The past 100 years of psychotherapy research has sought not only to examine the efficacy and effectiveness of psychotherapy, but also to identify the causal mechanisms and processes underlying therapeutic change (Lambert, 2013; Wampold & Imel, 2015). The existing research on psychotherapy processes has provided us with a rich understanding of several variables that are […]
Joshua K. Swift, Ph.D.
November 6, 2017
Advocating to Support Graduate Student Education
From October 17th through the 20th I had the opportunity to represent Division 29 at the American Psychological Association Education Leadership Conference in Washington, DC. The focus of the conference this year was Translating Psychological Science to Educational Practice, Policy, and the Public. There were many wonderful speakers who talked about using psychological principles as […]
Joshua K. Swift, Ph.D.
April 7, 2017
Is Psychotherapy Integration Always Beneficial?
Evidence-based practice in psychology has been defined as the integration of the best available research, clinical expertise, and the individual client’s characteristics, values, and preferences (APA, 2006). This definition suggests that psychotherapists should be able, and willing, to integrate techniques from different theoretical orientations based on the context. Although integration is important, it is also […]
Joshua K. Swift, Ph.D.
January 29, 2017