Short-term group psychotherapy: Who succeeds,who fails?

Group psychotherapy literature is unclear about what patient characteristics contribute to better and poorer outcome. This study examined pre-group therapy patient characteristics and their relationship to short-term group therapy outcome. A battery of outcome measurements was administered to 192 short-term group therapy patients before, after, and 4–6 months after their group experience. Three distinct outcome groups are defined: dropouts, low changers and high changers. Characteristics of each group are discussed. Aside from the traditionally important variables such as age and education, this study indicates that interpersonal variables (interpersonal sensitivity, distance/closeness to others, primary involvement with family) may be potentially important areas to pursue in screening and preparing patients for a group.     

Therapists’ perspectives about working with meaning in life in psychotherapy: A survey

Of 212 practicing therapists who completed a survey about working with meaning in life (MIL) in psychotherapy, 129 (61%) had recently worked with MIL with at least one client and reported on their work with a client in this survey. Those therapists who had worked with a client on MIL as compared with those who had not were older, more experienced, more humanistic/existential/experiential in orientation; reported more MIL training; and felt more competent working with MIL. Clients reported on primarily had internalizing, interpersonal, and career issues. Only 12% of clients explicitly labeled MIL as an issue coming into therapy. The three most frequently used interventions involved offering support; helping clients examine thoughts, feelings, and behaviors to discover hopes and goals; and facilitating exploration of MIL cognitions and experiences. Therapists reported many positive consequences from working with MIL. Therapists reported minimal training in MIL and moderate competence in working with MIL. Implications for practice, training, and research are presented.     

Therapists’ self-reported chronic strategies of disconnection in everyday life and in counselling and psychotherapy: an exploratory study

The aim of this study was to explore how therapists believe they may relationally disconnect from other people and their clients, with an overall objective of developing methods for enhancing relational depth in counselling and psychotherapy. Participants were 168 trainee and practicing therapists, who listed their chronic strategies of disconnections (CSoDs) in everyday relationships, and then rated the presence of these CSoDs in their therapeutic work. Thirty-nine categories of self-reported everyday CSoDs emerged, organised into seven domains. Most prevalent were behavioural, passive and intrapsychic strategies. Over half of the CSoDs were rated as being present in therapy to a minimal extent, most commonly passive CSoDs, disingenuous CSoDs and humour. Male therapists, and trainee therapists, were most likely to identify their CSoDs as present in therapy.     

Cotherapist modeling in group psychotherapy: Fact or fantasy?

This study examines ratings of cotherapist self-disclosure furnished by members in 20 outpatient groups. Clients completed a specially designed measure to assess three dimensions of therapist transparency: positive or negative valence, low or high risk, and the target of the disclosure, namely, the individual members, the group as a whole, the therapist her/himself, or the co-leader. Exploration of the frequency of therapist-to-therapist disclosure provided an evaluation of the modeling hypothesis that is so prevalent in the literature. The findings demonstrate that although the overall level of therapist self-disclosure was quite low, results were consistent with expectations showing that most of the personal comments were positive, low risk, and rarely directed to the cotherapist. The viability of the modeling concept in co-led groups is challenged.     

Digital lives in psychotherapy: ‘the other in the room’

Within the broader area of digital risk, there has been concern over the phenomena of ‘cyber suicide’, a completed or attempted suicide influenced by the internet. We propose a theoretical explanation of the ‘ambivalent self’ in people who go online searching for suicide, by introducing the concept of an inner split between the ‘suicidal part’ (SP) and ‘non-suicidal part’ (NSP) within the personality structure of the individual which struggle for domination of the inner life and external relationships and decisions of the suicidal person. This is grounded in psychoanalytic theory and draws upon a broader conceptualisation of the psyche of the self as split between rival parts, and differing states of mind, competing for control of the vulnerable individual and their capacity to tolerate and manage emotional pain and reality. The recognition and awareness of an inner split between the SP and NSP of the person who goes online, and how this influences virtual relationships, as well as external relationships, such as in psychotherapy, is an important understanding for contemporary psychotherapy and risk management in the digital age.     

Emotional and self-evaluative effects of social comparison information in later life: how are they moderated by collective self-esteem?

This study examined how the emotional and self-evaluative effects of social comparison in 162 community-dwelling older people were moderated by individual differences in their collective self-esteem (CSE), a trait that reflects valuing and identifying with reference groups. In our experimental simulation, administered 6 years after participants' CSE was measured, those with higher CSE reported significantly more positive emotions and self-evaluations only after downward comparison (i.e., with a worse-off peer), and significantly more negative emotions only after upward comparison (i.e., with a better-off peer). These findings contradict the possibility that an adaptive advantage of high CSE might result from the propensity to identify strategically with upward comparison targets. However, contrast with downward targets presents a viable alternative explanation for this advantage.     

Short-term memory limitations in children: Capacity or processing deficits?

This paper evaluates the assertion that short-term memory (STM) capacity increases with age. Initially an analysis is made of the STM system in terms of its parameters and control processes. No evidence was found that can suggest conclusively that either the capacity or the rate of information loss from STM varies with age. On the other hand, substantial evidence exists to show that the processing strategies used by adults are unavailable or deficient in children. Furthermore, considerable differences in the contents and complexity of the long-term memory (LTM) knowledge base (semantic and recognition networks can produce grossly different STM performance between age groups. The second half of this paper reviews three STM-related paradigms-memory span, serial probed recall, and recognition under limited exposure-that have consistently shown performance deficits in children. These deficits are explained in terms of the lack of proper control processes (or processing strategies), as well as an impoverished LTM knowledge base rather than a limitation in STM capacity.     

Jeff Love: the black circle: a life of Alexandre Kojève

Studies in East European Thought -     

Meaning in life: Discovered or created?

Against the background claims that a meaningful life is more likely to be the product of creation than discovery and that a meaningful life must involve both subjective satisfaction and an objective moral component, three foundations of a meaningful life are discussed. These include the quality of one's relationships, the integrative power of one's goals and projects, and the role of story or stories. Concerning the role of story, the theological challenge is to choose that story or those stories that place life in a genuinely ultimate context.     

Value for money?: Issues of fees in counselling and psychotherapy

Drawing on literature from different psychotherapeutic traditions, the meaning of money is reviewed, and the psychological and practical issues which arise from the setting, changing and payment of fees in counselling and psychotherapy are discussed. A person-centred approach is offered as a framework for the counsellor's understanding of fees in the therapeutic relationship.     

Item and Associative Interactions in Short-term Memory: Multiple Memory Systems?

Three interactions of item and associative information are discussed: differential forgetting (item recognition declines over lag ranges where pair recognition does not; Hockley, 1991); differential emphasis (instructions to attend to items degrade later pair recognition but instructions to attend to pairs does not degrade later item recognition; Hockley & Cristi, 1996a), and multiple presentations of pairs or items from pairs has little effect on judgements of frequency of items and pairs (Hockley & Cristi, 1996b). Taken as a whole, these results seem to be inconsistent with a separate memory-systems view of memory. TODAM, a global-matching model, has always assumed a single memory system for the storage and retrieval of item and associative information and, with the addition of context and mediators, it can generate the whole pattern of data.     

When to offer cognitive behavioural or psychoanalytic psychotherapy in an integrated psychotherapy service: Are everyday allocation decisions theoretically congruent?

Different modes of psychotherapy can be an effective form of treatment for a range of mental health problems. Psychotherapy provision in the NHS is organised in a variety of ways, with patient entry to various modes of therapy determined by a range of factors including evidence‐based guidelines and patient or referrer preference. The methods by which patients arrive at a particular mode of psychotherapy are largely unreported. This paper aims to describe this process in one UK NHS psychotherapy service offering cognitive behavioural and psychoanalytic psychotherapy, and provides data to inform a discussion on the theoretical congruence of these allocation decisions.