Hidden in Plain Sight: The Active Ingredients of Executive Coaching

We propose that I/O psychologists who coach executives have overlooked psychotherapy outcome research as a source of information and ideas that can be used to improve our executive coaching practices. This research, based on thousands of studies and many meta-analyses, has converged on the conclusion that four "active ingredients" account for most of the variance in psychotherapy outcomes. We describe how this literature has identified four primary "active ingredients" that account for most of the variance in psychotherapy outcomes: 1) Client/extratherapeutic factors (40%), 2) The relationship or alliance (30%), 3) Placebo or hope (15%), and 4) Theory and technique (15%). Working on the assumption that psychotherapy and executive coaching are sufficiently similar to justify generalization from one domain to the other, we describe these four active ingredients at length and explore how they may be at work in the executive coaching process. We also suggest that I/O psychologists have training and experience that allows us to leverage some of these active ingredients in our executive coaching (e.g., understanding of client individual differences related to coaching outcomes). But we also have areas of weakness (e.g., building a strong working relationship with an individual client) that may need to be bolstered with additional training and development experiences.     

Inconsistency Theories of Semantic Paradox

It is argued that a certain form of the view that the semantic paradoxes show that natural languages are "inconsistent" provides the best response to the semantic paradoxes. After extended discussions of the views of Kirk Ludwig and Matti Eklund, it is argued that in its strongest formulation the view maintains that understanding a natural language is sharing cognition of an inconsistent semantic theory for that language with other speakers. A number of aspects of this approach are discussed and a few objections are entertained.     

A Comprehensive Model for Adolescent Chemical Dependency Treatment

Chemical dependency among adolescents continues to present significant challenges to helping professionals. This article discusses the variety of approaches used to treat chemical dependency. An adolescent program that integrates the strengths of different perspectives and techniques is described.     

An Infertility Primer for Family Therapists: II. Working with Couples Who Struggle with Infertility

The distress of infertility and its medical treatments are profound, and the effects reverberate in each partner, the couple dyad, and the couple's relationships with family, friends, and medical systems. Yet family therapists, like others in our society, are often uninformed or misinformed about the experience of infertility. While the legacies of infertility may be painful and enduring, they often remain unspoken, and hence may be overlooked in standard interviews. This article describes the experiences of couples struggling with infertility, most of whom have sought medical intervention, and it provides treatment interventions for guiding couples through this difficult and often uncharted terrain. Case vignettes derived from 2 years of this clinical research study are included.     

ADAPTING TO ADAPTIVE TESTING

Computer adaptive testing (CAT) is a relatively recent innovation in large scale testing programs, but has had very limited application in private industry. This paper describes the development of a CAT for use by a large insurance company in selecting computer programmer trainees. Incumbents provided the calibration and evaluation data. The CAT led to increased item security, but did not decrease required testing time. Further, the CAT was found to be similar to a conventional, fixed-item test in reliability and validity. In addition to actual test results, computer simulated test data were used in a more detailed evaluation of the CAT's effectiveness. The concluding discussion notes the advantages and disadvantages observed from the use of adaptive testing.     

Dropping Out of Marriage and Family Therapy: A Critical Review of Research

The lack of attention given to research on the premature termination by clients in marriage and family therapy is evident in research reviews of the dropout phenomenon in psychotherapy. This article is an attempt to fill that void. The research literature on dropping out of family therapy is reviewed and organized. Studies in this area tend to focus on four kinds of variables: client characteristics, therapist characteristics, therapy process variables, and interventions. Stable findings in each of these areas are pointed out. Both limitations and recommendations for future research are discussed.