Demonstrated that behavioral marital therapy (BMT) and insight-oriented marital therapy (IOMT) could be rendered in a distinct and uncontaminated fashion in manual-guided outcome research where therapists were crossed with treatment condition. BMT proved to be highly structured, with 93 percent of therapist interventions reflecting behavioral…

These findings, along with prior ones from the same investigation, suggest that outcome is affected by the attitudes and beliefs of therapists concerning prognosis for lower-class and severely disturbed clients: therapists who believe they can help such clients can often do so. (Author)

Discusses engagement techniques including: (1) techniques enabling therapists to achieve influence with family members or entry into the family system; (2) techniques utilized in teaching the family how to behave in the therapy setting; and (3) tactics therapists may use to manage difficult moments in the session. (Author)

A clinical setting was used to evaluate therapist characteristics, therapist process, and family process in a short-term systems-behavioral model of family intervention. Families were designated by one of four degrees of therapy outcome. The data suggest that therapist relationship skills may be crucial determinants of therapy success. (Author)

Describes a model for using therapeutic adventure experiences to assess client or group behavior. Elements include accessing information from previous experiences with similar clients, hypothesizing about client behavior, introducing a novel adventure experience, examining potential interventions, integrating information to develop diagnoses, and…

Presents a series of arguments that emphasize the importance of comparatively evaluating psychotherapies with appropriate pharmacotherapy and pill placebo. The lack of a pill-placebo arm has rendered moot those studies that compared pharmacotherapy directly with psychotherapy because of the lack of an internal sample defining calibration with…

One of the maladies of living that seems to be of endemic proportions in Western society is affective deficit, experienced as emptiness, lack of fulfillment, dissatisfaction with obvious success, or a sense of not being complete nor even of being okay. This paper establishes a case for the importance of recognizing and developing interventions for…

Uses a case study to show how a therapist can help a family by breaking their loops of preferential behaviors. Describes a systemic approach that helps prevent families from using the same feedback loops that lead to dead-ends in their behavior. (JAC)

One of the most promising contemporary approaches to working therapeutically with children and their parents and families is to employ the parents and/or other family members as play-agents, or play therapists. The incorporation of parents and other family or family-surrogate figures into the play therapeutic treatment of children has therapeutic…

Relates how a Native American single mother and former drug user turned her life around and went to college to become a substance abuse therapist. During therapy groups with other Native Americans, she promotes healing by stressing the importance of family, parenting, self-esteem, and relationships, as opposed to focusing on the participant's…

Examination of 31 therapeutic wilderness programs specializing in mental health treatment revealed that most programs served high-risk youth using a variety of outdoor modalities; that there was not a consensus on the definition of therapeutic; and that, in most cases, nonprofessional staff were responsible for therapeutic interventions. (LP)

Numerous studies report that depression is the most common psychiatric disorder of the elderly. According to the behavioral view, depression results from inadequate, ineffective or insufficient positive reinforcement. In contrast, the cognitive position sees depression as a result of negative thinking about oneself, one's experience, and the…

Intended to enhance the work of therapists, guidance counselors, teachers, clergy, pediatricians, and others who work with children and their parents, this book sets out a wise and practical framework for more effective interventions with challenging children and resistant parents in school, community, or health care settings. The book offers…