Assessment & Treatment
Focused on the critical aspects of assessment and treatment in psychotherapy, this section offers resources, guidelines, and discussions on effective diagnostic and therapeutic strategies to improve client outcomes.
277 articles found
What’s Next for Me?
I sat in an integrated primary care elective course during the third year of my doctoral program in counseling psychology, mesmerized by the opportunity of working in primary care as a behavioral health consultant. After my completing this primary care elective and conducting brief psychotherapy for five years, I was convinced I would be prepared […]
Brittany Houston, M.S.
April 15, 2019
Healing from Anxiety, Depression, Trauma Using Forgiveness, Self-Compassion, and Energy Psychology while Tracking Change Over Time
Case Study of Carolyn’s Anxiety, Depression, and Trauma (Some information has been changed for confidentiality purposes in the case study below) “The Universe is telling me something needs to change” Carolyn is a 26-year-old married female with no children. She is married two years working as an interior decorator for a small company while her […]
Philip H. Friedman, Ph.D.
April 14, 2019
Continuing Care
What is Continuing Care? Continuing care for substance use disorders (SUDs) encompasses any services delivered on an outpatient basis after the initial or “primary” treatment episode, which serve to help patients move towards their goal of recovery (McKay, 2009). The treatment of SUDs has historically been comprised of two phases. The primary phase typically consists […]
Steven L. Proctor, Ph.D. + 1 more
March 31, 2019
Therapy for Youth with ADHD
Children and adolescents with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) exhibit frequent and severe inattentive (e.g., difficulty sustaining attention to and completing tasks) and/or hyperactive-impulsive (e.g., interrupting others, difficulty remaining seated) behaviors that lead to significant impairment in academic and/or social functioning (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). ADHD symptoms and associated impairment typically are chronic and thus require ongoing […]
George J. DuPaul, Ph.D.
March 17, 2019
Therapist Responsivity to Patients’ Early Treatment Beliefs and Psychotherapy Process
Abstract As the conceptualization of evidence-based practice expands beyond the phasic application of treatment manuals for specific mental health diagnoses, greater attention is being paid to treatment personalization, including at its very first steps. One approach to such early personalization involves therapist flexible responsivity to patients’ presenting nondiagnostic characteristics, such as their treatment-related beliefs, that […]
Alice E. Coyne, PhD + 2 more
March 5, 2019
Why Psychotherapists Should Measure and Monitor Client Treatment Response
Background Thousands of clinical trials and naturalistic studies have now been conducted on the effects of psychotherapy. Reviews of this research have shown that about 75% of those who enter treatment in clinical trials show some benefit (Lambert, 2013). This finding generalizes across a wide range of disorders except for severe biologically based disturbances (e.g., […]
Michael J. Lambert, Ph.D. + 1 more
March 3, 2019
Want to Know Your Blind Spots? Ask Your Clients!
While there is little debate about whether psychotherapy works, there remains disagreement about how it works (Barlow, 2004; Lilienfeld, Ritschel, Lynn, Cautin, & Latzman, 2014; Lorenzo-Luaces, German, & DeDubeis, 2014; Messer & Wampold, 2002; Shafran et al., 2009; Tracey, Wampold, Lichtenberg, & Goodyear, 2014; Wampold, 2015). This lack of consensus has understandably led to continued […]
Sean Woodland, Ph.D.
February 17, 2019
The Group Questionnaire
Evidence-Based Practice (EBP) represents a standard of practice as clinicians seek increasingly effective ways to provide therapeutic services to their clients. Comprised of three main approaches, EBP seeks to apply a structured, systematic approach to the provision of therapy through the use of empirically supported treatments, practice guidelines, and practice based evidence (Burlingame & Beecher, […]
Klinton Hobbs, Ph.D. + 5 more
January 20, 2019
Problematic Empathy in Counseling and Psychotherapy
What happens when a client recounts a horrible act of violence in which they were the perpetrator and for which they express enjoyment and a lack of remorse? How do therapists react? Would they experience a lack of empathy or would they over-empathize in an attempt to connect with the client? Current research suggests that […]
Alison Shimoda, B.S. + 1 more
December 23, 2018
Counseling for Teens and Young Adults With an Autism Spectrum Diagnosis
For the early-career clinician, getting started in the world of therapy in either private practice or an outpatient clinic can be both overwhelming and exciting. After graduation, many of us are in this state of transition out of student mode and into professional mode. Developing confidence as a young professional, while also building a caseload, […]
Beth Trammell, Ph.D., HSPP + 1 more
December 12, 2018
Personality Disorder & A Missed Clinical Turning Point
The interpersonal difficulties experienced by patients diagnosed with a personality disorder (PD) tend to pose great difficulty in negotiating a strong therapeutic alliance between patient and therapist (Muran, Segal, Samstag, & Crawford, 1994; Stern, 1938; Vaillant, 1992; Waldinger & Gunderson, 1984). Patients with PDs often generate intense and uncomfortable reactions in their therapists, sometimes producing […]
Lauren M. Lipner, Ph.D. + 1 more
December 12, 2018
Rupture-Resolution Processes in Early Treatment for Borderline Personality Disorder
The quality of the therapeutic alliance is a robust predictor of psychotherapy outcomes (Horvath, Del Re, Flückinger, & Symonds, 2011). Recent studies have shown that some therapists are consistently better at developing and maintaining alliances with their patients than others (Baldwin, Wampold, & Imel, 2007; Dinger, Strack, Leichsenring, Wilmers, & Schauenburg, 2008; Zuroff, Kelly, Leybman, […]
Tali Z. Boritz, Ph.D.
December 12, 2018