A Multi‐Family Group Intervention for Adolescent Depression: The BEST MOOD Program

Depression is the most common mental disorder for young people, and it is associated with educational underachievement, self‐harm, and suicidality. Current psychological therapies for adolescent depression are usually focused only on individual‐level change and often neglect family or contextual influences. The efficacy of interventions may be enhanced with a broader therapeutic focus on family factors such as communication, conflict, support, and cohesion. This article describes a structured multi‐family group approach to the treatment of adolescent depression: Behaviour Exchange Systems Therapy for adolescent depression (BEST MOOD). BEST MOOD is a manualized intervention that is designed to address both individual and family factors in the treatment of adolescent depression. BEST MOOD adopts a family systems approach that also incorporates psychoeducation and elements of attachment theories. The program consists of eight multifamily group therapy sessions delivered over 2 hours per week, where parents attend the first four sessions and young people and siblings join from week 5. The program design is specifically aimed to engage youth who are initially resistant to treatment and to optimize youth and family mental health outcomes. This article presents an overview of the theoretical model, session content, and evaluations to date, and provides a case study to illustrate the approach.     

Mentalizing Family Violence Part 2: Techniques and Interventions

This is the second of two companion papers that provide an overview of mentalization‐based concepts and techniques when working with the seeming “mindlessness” of intra‐family violence. The focus of this paper is on general mentalization‐oriented approaches and specific interventions that aim to (1) disrupt the non‐mentalizing cycles that can generate intra‐family violence and (2) encourage the emergence of patterns of family interactions that provide the foundation for non‐violent alternatives. Various playful exercises and activities are described, including the taking of “mental state snapshots” and “selfies” in sessions and staging inverted role‐plays, as well as using theatrical masks and creating body–mind maps and scans. These can make “chronic” relationship issues come alive in session and permit “here and now” experiences that generate a safe context for mentalizing to take place. At the core of the work is the continuous focus on integrating experience and reflection. Without acute awareness of the thoughts and feelings occurring in the sessions, mere reflection is not likely to enable change. By increasing mentalizing in the family system, family members’ trusting attitudes grow, both within and outside the family.     

La métamémoire : analyse de sa mesure par questionnaire. Étude exploratoire

This research aims at allowing an elaboration of a metamemory questionnaire. A study of metamemory and metacognition modelisations first allowed identifying four dimensions (the stereotypes about memory aging, the subject’s beliefs about one’s abilities, his knowledge about strategies and strategy use). A content analysis of available questionnaires evidenced an incomplete operationalisation of these dimensions, and allowed us to identify some modalities for each of them. In order to check that modalities are clearly defined, we proceeded to a comparison between different subjects with one of these questionnaires. The agreement rates are satisfying, except for two modalities, but the results constrain us to complete this study with a similar one using another questionnaire.     

Psychotherapy research: an interplay between inner and outer and a succession of meanings

Psychotherapy research is a rapidly developing area of study that aims to explore the integration of inner and outer conditions of an individual’s experience, the interplay between subjective and objective, as well as between individual and collective. Questions regarding a more integrative view and qualitative research in psychotherapy are discussed in the paper. The author introduces some ideas from the studies on psychotherapy effectiveness that were done at Vilnius University by a group of researchers who work in the ‘Centre for research on the psychodynamics of personality’. Clinical psychologists who hold a doctorate degree or who are in doctoral studies in the Department of Psychology at Vilnius University are members of this research group. The subjective understanding about healing episodes and the development of depth premises were the main tasks of these studies. Among other methods, the researchers used the drawing a picture of a healing moment and telling a psychotherapy story recalled by the client to collect data. Two examples of drawing a picture of a healing moment and one example of telling a therapy story are analyzed in the paper. The themes of subjective experience of renewal in psychotherapy as well as the multiplicity of experience and results in psychotherapy are discussed in the paper with case illustrations. This study showed that drawing a picture opens one more dimension of reflection and that it can be an appropriate tool for developing individual narratives as well. Authoring and re‐authoring one’s life narrative is accepted as part of a productive therapy as well as discovering one’s inner authorship. The ability to follow a succession of meanings, as well as a connection to nature and culture could be one of the ways of actualizing an integrative view in psychotherapy research.     

Fidelity Failures in Brief Strategic Family Therapy for Adolescent Drug Abuse: A Clinical Analysis

As evidence‐based family treatments for adolescent substance use and conduct problems gain traction, cutting edge research moves beyond randomized efficacy trials to address questions such as how these treatments work and how best to disseminate them to community settings. A key factor in effective dissemination is treatment fidelity, which refers to implementing an intervention in a manner consistent with an established manual. While most fidelity research is quantitative, this study offers a qualitative clinical analysis of fidelity failures in a large, multisite effectiveness trial of Brief Strategic Family Therapy (BSFT) for adolescent drug abuse, where BSFT developers trained community therapists to administer this intervention in their own agencies. Using case notes and video recordings of therapy sessions, an independent expert panel first rated 103 cases on quantitative fidelity scales grounded in the BSFT manual and the broader structural‐strategic framework that informs BSFT intervention. Because fidelity was generally low, the panel reviewed all cases qualitatively to identify emergent types or categories of fidelity failure. Ten categories of failures emerged, characterized by therapist omissions (e.g., failure to engage key family members, failure to think in threes) and commissions (e.g., off‐model, nonsystemic formulations/interventions). Of these, “failure to think in threes” appeared basic and particularly problematic, reflecting the central place of this idea in structural theory and therapy. Although subject to possible bias, our observations highlight likely stumbling blocks in exporting a complex family treatment like BSFT to community settings. These findings also underscore the importance of treatment fidelity in family therapy research.     

Parent Education for Migrant Mothers of Left‐Behind Children in China: A Pilot Randomized Controlled Trial

Although numerous studies have indicated the significance of parental support and parent–child communication in alleviating the adverse effects of parental departure on left‐behind children, researchers have rarely addressed the impact of parent education on migrant parents. On the basis of the results of a pilot randomized controlled trial, the study reported here involved examining the possible outcomes and feasibility of a parent education program for rural‐to‐urban migrant mothers of left‐behind children in China. Informed by an existential–narrative approach to parent education, the program was composed of six 2.5‐hour sessions. The sample included 56 migrant mothers recruited from a social service center in Shenzhen, China, who were randomly assigned to either the immediate group (n = 28, M = 34.82 years, SD = 4.12, aged 23–43) or the waitlist control group (n = 28, M = 34.68 years, SD = 4.53, aged 28–43). The hypotheses of the trial were twofold: that the program would positively affect participants’ parental identity and that it would improve mother–child relationships and parenting practices. The results revealed no significant difference in parental identity between the intervention group and the waitlist control group at the post‐test assessment after ruling out the effects of pretest survey scores. However, significant differences did emerge in parent–child relationships and parenting practices. Overall, the results corroborate the feasibility of examining the current program for migrant mothers in China in a full trial. The findings also offer insights into developing empirically supported parent education programs for migrant parents.     

Treatment‐as‐Usual for Couples: Trajectories Before and After Beginning Couple Therapy

Couple therapy has been shown to be a meaningful way to improve couples’ relationships. However, less information is known about couples’ functioning prior to entering treatment in community settings, as well as how their relationship functioning changes from initiating therapy onward. This study examined 87 couples who began community‐based couple therapy during a longitudinal study of couples in the military. The couples were assessed six times over the course of 3 years, including time points before and after starting couple therapy. Using an interrupted‐time series design, we examined trajectories across the start of couple therapy in relationship satisfaction, divorce proneness, and negative communication. The results demonstrated that couples’ relationship satisfaction was declining and both divorce proneness and negative communication were increasing prior to entering couple therapy. After starting couple therapy, couples’ functioning on all three variables leveled off but did not show further change, but previous experience in relationship education moderated these effects. Specifically, those who were assigned to the relationship education program (vs. control) demonstrated greater reductions in divorce proneness and greater increases marital satisfaction after starting therapy; however, they also started more distressed.     

Reconceiving the field: Infant mental health,intersectionality, and reproductive justice

The field of infant mental health is conventionally comprised of professional discourses including developmental science, psychology, and psychiatry, among others, and involves spheres of practice as wide-ranging as pediatrics, maternal/child health, early intervention, early care and education, and child welfare. The World Association of Infant Mental Health [WAIMH] put out its position paper on the rights of infants in 2014 (amended in March 2016) in recognition of the human rights implications of professional understanding of infants’ unique, yet universal, developmental capacities and needs. This article links the policy issues outlined in the WAIMH position paper with critical issues in the field of reproductive justice, extending the reach of WAIMH's call to action on behalf of infants’ rights, and pointing the way toward potent alliances among interconnected movements. Connecting the dots among economic injustice, race-based health disparities, and gender inequities, the article demonstrates that it is not possible to safeguard infant mental health unless we make reproductive justice a reality.     

Les Publications essentielles sur le Rorschach en SI Exner

The objective of this article is to provide psychologists interested in using the Rorschach Comprehensive System with the French-language references on this topic as well as those written in other languages by French-speaking specialists. A brief commentary of the works of J. Exner is provided, followed by a presentation of investigations concerning the Comprehensive System addressing particular forms of psychopathology.