Common Factors Come Alive: Practical Strategies for Implementing Common Factors in MFT Training

Presently, MFT training programs teach MFT models in a way that emphasizes differences over similarities (Karam et al. in J Marital Fam Ther, 2015. doi: 10.1111/jmft.12096; Sprenkle and Blow in J Marital Fam Ther 30:113–129, 2004a. doi: 10.1111/j.1752-0606.2004.tb01228.x, in J Marital Fam Ther 30:151–157, b. doi: 10.1111/j.1752-0606.2004.tb01230.x; Sprenkle et al. in Common factors in couple and family therapy: the overlooked foundation for effective practice. Guilford Press, New York, 2009). Although teaching a variety of models and their distinctiveness is vital, doing so may create a competitive rather than integrative relationship between models (Karam et al. 2015). While Karam et al. 2015 encourage the inclusion of common factors in MFT training, we expand their justification for the importance of doing so We also explain conceptual and practical ways to include common factors in MFT training. Common factors instruction can fulfill multiple purposes: (a) create a sense of cohesiveness for programs which need to teach breadth of topics that can seem unrelated, (b) help prepare practitioners who need to learn many models well but will likely adopt an integrative approach, (c) align with basic skills training, (d) align with process research, and (e) enhance the richness of individual models. For each of these purposes, we provide an example of a classroom activity. We conclude with a unifying example of how one student may learn the common-factors perspective and weave it into her reflective practices as an MFT student.     

Clustered Common Factor Exploration in Factor Analysis

Psychometrika - The factor analysis (FA) model does not permit unique estimation of the common and unique factor scores. This weakness is notorious as the factor indeterminacy in FA. Luckily, some...     

Remembering the Pattern that Connects: Toward an Eco-Informed MFT

Gregory Bateson, who is regarded as one of the founders of the field of family therapy, warned about the dangers of chopping up the ecology (literally and metaphorically). Yet the ecosystem is showing signs of faltering under the pressure of human mistreatment, and increasingly people are manifesting symptoms associated with extreme disconnection from nature. Although family therapists have devoted little attention to the relationship between human and ecological planetary suffering, as systemically trained professionals MFTs are uniquely situated to see the big picture and to promote integrative healing between individual, familial, and environmental levels. This article explores some of the factors underpinning the field’s lack of attention to ecological issues and provides recommendations for how MFTs can remember the pattern that connects by cultivating a more eco-informed approach to training and clinical practice.     

Common morality as an alternative to principlism.

Unlike the principles of Kant, Mill, and Rawls, those of principlism are not action guides that stem from an underlying, integrated moral theory. Hence problems arise in reconciling the principles with each other and, indeed, in interpreting them as action guides at all, since they have no content in and of themselves. Another approach to "theory and method in bioethics" is presented as an alternative to principlism, though actually the "alternative" predates principlism by about 10 years. The alternative's account of morality stays close to ordinary, common morality with its rules and ideals, which in turn are grounded in aspects of human nature. As such, morality must be understood to be a rational, impartial, and public system that is incumbent on everyone. Morality is a unified and integrated system. The moral rules and ideals are also "culture-" and "profession-sensitive" in that they are interpreted more specifically within these various contexts.     

Mindfulness: A Proposed Common Factor

Mindfulness is proposed as a core psychotherapy process. It is defined as a state of psychological freedom that occurs when attention remains quiet and limber, without attachment to any particular point of view. It can be shown that this process is collaborativefy employed by psychotherapist and patient within all psychotherapy orientations, and also by the integrative psychotherapist when making optimal choices among orientations. This article addresses (1) the defining attributes of mindfulness, (2) relevant conceptual approaches that lend theoretical support for a mindfulness factor, (3) two attentional forms of mindfulness that seem to have particular correspondence with either psychodynamic or cognitive-behavioral therapy, (4) clinical applications, and (5) the role of mindfulness for the integrative decision-making process.     

Recognizing Spirituality as an Important Factor in Counselor Supervision

Despite the recent, growing emphasis on spirituality in the counseling and psychotherapy literature, information regarding spirituality and the supervision process is limited. The purpose of this article is to help supervisors and supervisees enhance awareness of spiritual values in supervision. Factors such as counselor competency, conceptualization of spirituality, cross‐cultural awareness, and the similarity of clients' and counselors' values form a foundation for developing effective intervention and supervision strategies. A series of research questions is proposed to spur a program of empirical exploration.     

Managing Anxiety: A Therapist Common Factor

In this paper, we propose that therapist anxiety in the therapy room, especially anxiety stirred up by difficult or triggering clients, represents a challenge to effective therapy, and that effective management of this anxiety be considered as a necessary therapist skill for conducting quality couple and family therapy (CFT). We propose that effective therapists need to be able to manage their emotions, especially their anxiety, in order to truly help their clients. The failure to do this can lead to break downs in the alliance and the flow of therapy, and these deleterious effects can be prevented when therapists actively navigate their internal states through self-awareness and ongoing introspection. Bridging psychotherapy literature, we discuss specific strategies to this end, and make clinical recommendations for CFTs and CFT training programs.     

Time-Course of Sensitivity Changes as Attention Shifts to an Unpredictable Location

Shifting visual attention is often described as analogous to a spotlight moving through empty space between locations. In the present experiment, a peripheral precue summoned attention to an initial location, and 200 ms later a second peripheral cue appeared beside one of two possible second locations, each 14° away from the initial location. The target was twice as likely to appear at the location that had been indicated by the immediately preceding cue as at the location that had been previously cued or that would be cued. Fine-grained temporal analyses indicated that, as attention was shifted, sensitivity to information at the second location gradually increased while sensitivity at the first location simultaneously decreased. Average sensitivity over the two locations during the shift remained significantly greater than average sensitivity immediately following the initial precue. In contrast, an attentional “spotlight” moving from the first to the second location would produce a decrease in average sensitivity to its initial level while the spotlight was between locations.     

In Spite of Indeterminacy Many Common Factor Score Estimates Yield an Identical Reproduced Covariance Matrix

It was investigated whether commonly used factor score estimates lead to the same reproduced covariance matrix of observed variables. This was achieved by means of Schönemann and Steiger’s (1976) regression component analysis, since it is possible to compute the reproduced covariance matrices of the regression components corresponding to different factor score estimates. It was shown that Thurstone’s, Ledermann’s, Bartlett’s, Anderson-Rubin’s, McDonald’s, Krijnen, Wansbeek, and Ten Berge’s, as well as Takeuchi, Yanai, and Mukherjee’s score estimates reproduce the same covariance matrix. In contrast, Harman’s ideal variables score estimates lead to a different reproduced covariance matrix.     

The Cultural Factor in Lay Perception of Jealousy as a Motive for Wife Battery1

Cultural psychology is concerned with the comparative study of the way culture and psyche shape each other: This process is particularly well illustrated in the social construction of some feelings. Although sexual jealousy seems to be universal, people differ in the intensity of their reactions and in the type of stimuli perceived as threatening. Replicating previous research in Britain by Delgado and Bond (1993), a questionnaire research survey was conducted in Spain to determine if lay perception considers jealousy a justification for wife battery. The comparison of results shows striking differences: The harmdoer was seen as more guilty in Britain and the victim was seen as more guilty in Spain. Results demonstrate cultural differences in the perception of jealousy; when jealousy is a motive for assault, there are also cultural differences in judgments of responsibility. Emotions function differently in different cultures regarding perceived causes and justification for conduct.     

Common sense as an ingredient of the self and the community

The new situation in Europe, as exemplified in Germany, calls for a common consciousness, one traditionally characterized as sensus communis or common sense. Kant organized his ruminations on common sense — specifically, the logical common sense — around three maxims: enlightenment, the extended way of thinking and the consistent way of thinking. These are here described with an eye to their consequences for the issues of identity, community and pedagogy.     

Rumination in Response to Stress as a Common Vulnerability Factor to Depression and Substance Misuse in Adolescence

The current study examined rumination in response to stress as a common vulnerability factor to both depression and substance use problems in adolescence. Specifically, we used a multi-wave longitudinal design to examine whether adolescents who tend to ruminate in response to stress exhibit increases in depressive symptoms and substance misuse following the occurrence of negative events. At time 1, adolescents (n = 161) completed measures assessing depressive symptoms, substance misuse, and the tendency to ruminate in response to stress. Every 6 weeks for the next 18 weeks participants completed measures assessing the occurrence of negative events, depressive symptoms, and substance misuse. Hierarchical linear modeling analyses indicated that adolescents who tend to ruminate in response to stress report greater elevations in depressive symptoms and substance misuse following elevations in negative events than other adolescents. The relationship between rumination, negative events, and substance misuse was moderated by age. Support was not obtained for fluctuations in depressive symptoms as a mediator of the relationship between negative events and substance misuse. Fluctuations in negative affect, however, were found to mediate this relationship.

Religion as Cultural Models: Developing an Emic Measure of Religiosity

Despite a century's worth of work, lacunae remain in our understanding of the religion‐health relationship. Scholars in this field have called for increasingly sophisticated conceptualizations of religiosity that refine its connection to well‐being, accounting for both positive and negative associations, while being sensitive to the cultural variations in the experience of religion. This article argues that cognitive anthropological methods provide a novel approach to these issues by conceptualizing aspects of religion as culturally shared “styles of life.” Specifically, the combined approaches of cultural consensus and cultural consonance provide an emically valid measure of religiosity that is then linked to health through the psychosocial stress paradigm. Utilizing research among Brazilian Pentecostals within the state of São Paulo, this intrareligious study evaluates the predictive power of religious cultural consonance relative to widely used and established religiosity scales. Religious consonance is found to have a stronger correlation with psychological well‐being than comparable measures, suggesting that existing standardized measures miss important dimensions of the religion‐health relationship. As such, this article outlines an important area of collaboration between anthropologists and other religion‐health researchers.