Psychotherapy Process
Explore the dynamics and stages of the psychotherapy process, from the initial client assessment to the therapeutic interventions that promote healing. This section provides insights into the complexities of therapeutic relationships and strategies to enhance treatment effectiveness.
254 articles found
In Therapy, You Must Engage the Child in the Child’s World
Henry Kronengold (2017) invites readers to experience with him a “curious space” of relational connections, playfulness, symbols, and metaphors that characterize psychotherapy with children and adolescents. What is it like for both client and therapist as they tentatively begin a therapeutic relationship, find common channels of communication, solve problems, and make sense of life’s experiences? […]
John W. Seymour, Ph.D., LMFT
April 7, 2017
Expert Pantheoretical Advice for Psychotherapy Termination
Psychotherapy research has made significant strides over many decades in identifying treatment ingredients that bode well for a successful outcome (Greenberg, 2016; Lambert, 2013; Norcross, 2011). Yet, relatively little empirical evidence or transtheoretical consensus has been produced about the closing moves in effective terminations. Instead, attention has more frequently been turned to the problem of […]
Roger P. Greenberg, Ph.D. + 2 more
March 19, 2017
Fostering Engagement During Termination
Abstract Therapists often struggle to determine the most important things to focus on during termination. Reviewing the treatment, identifying plans for the future, summarizing positive gains, and saying goodbye receive the most attention. Despite our best intentions, termination can end up becoming intellectualized. Attachment theory and recent developments in neuroscience offer us a road map […]
Cheri L. Marmarosh, Ph.D., ABPP, CGP
March 12, 2017
Framing Treatment Goals with Clients
One of the primary goals of most forms of psychotherapy is to reduce the suffering or distress that clients experience. However, various orientations often differ in how they frame that goal – some focusing more on symptom reduction, others on insight, and still others on personal growth. Clients may also differ in the way that […]
Jake Park, Ph.D.
March 5, 2017
Explaining Therapeutic Change in Residential Wilderness Therapy Groups
Residential wilderness therapy or adventure therapy is “the prescriptive use of adventure experiences provided by mental health professionals, often conducted in natural settings that kinesthetically engage clients on cognitive, affective, and behavioral levels.” (Gass, Gillis & Russell, 2012 p.1). The term adventure therapy is used in the literature interchangeably with “wilderness therapy” (Russell, 2001) and […]
Harold L. (Lee) Gillis, Ph.D. + 1 more
February 26, 2017
Noticing Therapeutic Novelty
Many children participate in the classic science project of nurturing a seedling in a Dixie cup and observing the ensuing course of germination. The child’s primary job is to exercise patience with the process, punctuated by subtle manipulation of the seedling’s environment to ensure ideal growth conditions. Hopefully, in time, the seedling pokes out of […]
Melissa A. Smigelsky, M.A., M.S.
February 19, 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
Cross-Training Your Therapeutic Ear Through Hip Hop
Clinical Notes with Dr. J …Initially rap was America’s informal CNN because when Rap records came out somebody from far away could listen to a Rap record because it uses so many descriptive words and get a visual picture from what was being said…Rap is now a worldwide phenomenon. Rap is the CNN for young […]
Jonathan Jenkins, Psy.D.
January 25, 2017
Working with Transfer Clients
It is ironic that while most therapists champion the role of the therapeutic relationship in the success of therapy, there has been little research on how the transfer process and prior therapy relationships may have an impact on the therapeutic relationship. Clients are often transferred from one therapist to another in clinics when therapists-in-training leave […]
Barbara J. Thompson, Ph.D. + 1 more
December 31, 2016
Stop, Drop, and Roll (With It)
Psychological resistance refers to patients’ conscious or unconscious opposition to aspects of the therapy process. When not skillfully addressed, resistance can lead to therapeutic alliance ruptures, “deteriorations in the relationship [indicated by] patient behaviors or communications that are interpersonal markers indicating critical points in therapy for exploration” (Safran & Muran, 1996, p. 447). While ruptures […]
Sara Beth Austin, M.A. + 1 more
December 31, 2016
Bilingualism as a Tool in Psychotherapy
…the one point that the emigrant feels so particularly painfully is—one can only say—the loss of the language in which one had lived and thought and which one will never be able to replace with another for all one’s efforts at empathy. (Freud, as cited in Urdang, 2016, p. 156) Psychotherapists live and work in […]
Daria Diakonova-Curtis, Ph.D.
December 31, 2016
Expanding Horizons
The therapeutic alliance had been found to be one of the most robust predictors of treatment retention and therapeutic outcome (Horvath, Del Re, Flückiger, & Symonds, 2011). In his seminal transtheoretical formulation, Bordin (1979) emphasized purposeful collaboration and the affective bond between patient and therapist as essential. This laid the foundation for its consideration as […]
Lauren M. Lipner, Ph.D.
November 17, 2016