Researching psychotherapy integration: A heuristic approach

Moustakas argues that questions and methodology in heuristic research flow out of inner awareness, meaning and inspiration. The approach might arguably embrace a combination of qualitative research methods, and constitute a kind of bricolage. This paper describes a heuristic enquiry into psychotherapy integration that used such a combination of methods – an interpretative phenomenological approach, case studies, reflexive action, and writing. It demonstrates how each of these methods contributed to the six phases of heuristic enquiry, from the initial engagement with psychotherapy as a trainee to the creative synthesis of published works and a PhD thesis, together with some reflection on the enquiry's limitations and rigour. Published texts, training, clinical practice and reflexivity constituted the material from which a new organizing framework for understanding psychotherapy integration was formulated. The author reflects on how the research design allowed deep engagement with this material, and changed his perspective of psychotherapy integration. In conclusion, this paper suggests that both psychotherapy integration and heuristic enquiry can only be conducted on an individual and personal basis, and that it is the quality of the relationship, with the client, or the research material, that produces results.     

Positive psychotherapy: A strength-based approach

Positive psychotherapy (PPT) is a therapeutic approach broadly based on the principles of positive psychology. Rooted in Chris Peterson’s groundbreaking work on character strengths, PPT integrates symptoms with strengths, resources with risks, weaknesses with values, and hopes with regrets in order to understand the inherent complexities of human experiences in a way that is more balanced than the traditional deficit-oriented approach to psychotherapy. This paper makes the case of an alternative approach to psychotherapy that pays equal attention and effort to negatives and positives. It discusses PPT’s assumptions and describes in detail how PPT exercises work in clinical settings. The paper summarizes results of pilot studies using this approach, discusses caveats in conducting PPT, and suggests potential directions.     

Healing through meeting: A dialogical approach to psychotherapy

The American Journal of Psychoanalysis -     

Guiding Self-Change: A new model for brief psychotherapy

The authors summarize the essential ingredients of contemporary Brief Therapy (BT), the features that distinguish BT from longer-term therapies, and BT's core assumptions about personal change and influence. They then describe “Guided Self-Change” (GSC), an explicitly value-driven approach to personal change based on modern principles of adult education. GSC places primary responsibility for change with the patient as early as practicable. Inherent in this approach is an emphasis on efficient, limited utilization of counseling sessions to mentor patients' real life attitude and behavior experiments. Advantages of a highly proactive, value-driven educational orientation over the traditional therapeutic paradigm are enumerated, especially given current pressures for therapeutic efficiency.     

Predicting psychotherapy benefit: a probabilistic and individualized approach

We describe the development of the probability of treatment benefit (PTB) chart that incorporates, integrates, and extends more recent approaches to describing treatment effects, such as the Reliable Change Index (Jacobson & Truax, 1991) and normative comparisons (Kendall, Marrs-Garcia, Nath, & Sheldrick, 1999), by including parameters that are simultaneously probabilistic and individualized. To illustrate the PTB chart, data are taken from an effectiveness trial (N=139) of a modular treatment for disruptive behavior disorders. The results highlight both individual variability and the probabilistic nature of psychotherapy benefit. Finally, we discuss the utility of the PTB chart in terms of research, policy, and practice implications. Probability tables, such as the PTB chart, have the potential to be used as simple clinical tools to supplement traditional effect sizes and help patients make truly informed decisions about treatment participation.     

Group psychotherapy with adolescents: An integrative approach

Conclusion This paper has attempted to convey a complex strategy and rationale for conducting group psychotherapy with a specific population. A variety of techniques have been integrated into an approach designed for adolescent groups. Modifications of this basic approach would be readily applicable in a variety of settings (e.g., school counseling programs, in-patient, facilities, private therapy).     

Probability: A new logico-semantical approach

This approach does not define a probability measure by syntactical structures. It reveals a link between modal logic and mathematical probability theory. This is shown (1) by adding an operator (and two further connectives and constants) to a system of lower predicate calculus and (2) regarding the models of that extended system. These models are models of the modal systemS ₅ (without the Barcan formula), where a usual probability measure is defined on their set of possible worlds. Mathematical probability models can be seen as models ofS ₅.     

A time-limited dynamic approach to adolescent inpatient group psychotherapy

In response to sharply curtailed lengths of stay of adolescents in an inpatient psychiatric program, new therapeutic modalities need to be implemented. A time-limited dynamic approach to adolescent inpatient group psychotherapy is presented. The model integrates psychoanalytic and crisis theory into a group format. The primary focus in this model is upon resolution of problematic interpersonal interactions as they are related to the current crisis state. The group process, as related to the adolescent, involves three phases. These include an initial intake phase, which incorporates an ego-functioning assessment; a second or middle phase which focuses on making actions ego-alien; and the termination phase, which incorporates the learning experience and how it relates to the resolution of precipitators of the admission.     

Ambiguity of form: Old and new

The two-fold appearances of certain two-dimensional spatial patterns are described. While these ambiguous figures have been employed extensively in a variety of experimental studies of perceptual organization, their use extends beyond psychology and reaches back into antiquity. Regrettably, very few examples of such patterns remain available. A more-or-less comprehensive set of well-known ambiguous figures is described and illustrated, including an equi-ambiguous version of the “chalice and faces”. An attempt is made to devise new examples of such figures adding to the repertoire of materials available for studying relevant aspects of visual perception.