Multidimensional treatment of fear of death.

Conducted research to provide a multidimensional conceptualization of fear of death and to develop a factor analytic scale for its measurement. Questionnaire data were collected from 375 undergraduates. Based on previous work and the results of factor analysis, 8 fear of death dimensions are proposed: fear of the dying process, fear of the dead, fear of being destroyed, fear for significant others, fear of the unknown, fear of conscious death, fear for body after death, and fear of premature death. The mean reliability coefficient for the proposed subscales was .75. Some initial evidence for construct validity was presented by a test of one aspect of the theoretically expected relation between fear of death and religiosity. (11 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A consumer-oriented approach to psychotherapy.

Argues for a consumer-oriented approach to psychotherapy that focuses on the perspective and role of the client in the therapeutic contract. It is recommended that therapists clearly specify their type of therapy in the initial contract and engage in ongoing evaluation by soliciting periodic feedback from clients. Moreover, it is suggested that follow-up evaluation, consumer protection boards, and client involvement in problem definition and problem resolution planning may all help to ensure protection of a client's rights. (22 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Morita therapy: Its basic features and cognitive intervention for anxiety treatment.

Describes Morita therapy as being centered around positive reinterpretation of anxiety in order to stimulate attentional, attitudinal, and behavioral change in self-preoccupied anxious clients. It promotes clients' behavioral commitment to constructive and productive activities. The shinkeishitsusho disposition is regarded as a combination of predispositional nervousness and hypersensitivity and learned and habituated cognitive patterns of anxious self-preoccupation. The aim of the therapy is not to reject the nervous disposition but to modify clients' dysfunctional cognitive and behavioral patterns to reduce unproductive self-preoccupation. The therapy promotes clients' acceptance of their predispositional nervous sensitivity and anxiousness, not as personal weaknesses but as potentially functional and constructive qualities as they are redirected toward concrete tasks and realistic action-taking. Therapeutic progress is thus initiated when clients take a positive view of their previously rejected nervous dispositions and successfully apply it to practical activities for productive purposes. Similarities and differences between Morita therapy and rational-emotive therapy are noted. (39 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Skills training as an approach to the treatment of heterosexual-social anxiety: A review.

Reviews experimental investigations of the effectiveness of social-skills training approaches to the treatment of heterosexual social anxiety. In general the studies support the skills-training treatment approach. However, these results should be interpreted with a certain degree of cautious optimism because many of the reviewed studies suffered from several methodological and procedural problems. The major methodological and procedural problems were concerned with S selection and screening, inadequate and invalid assessment procedures, lack of transfer and follow-up measurement, and inattention to the interaction between treatment procedures and S characteristics. These errors need to be rectified for investigators in this research area to make significant contributions to the various theories (conditioned anxiety, faulty cognitive-evaluative appraisal, and skills deficit) regarding the etiology and maintainers of heterosexual social anxiety and to the clinical treatment of such disorders. (49 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Integrating an emotion-focused approach to treatment into psychotherapy integration.

A truly integrative approach to treatment needs to combine methods of working with affect, cognition, and behavior, but established principles of affective change are sorely missing in the literature. Emotion theory and research suggests that emotion awareness, regulation, and transformation are 3 major principles of emotional change. In addition to these principles, 3 general factors that help guide integrative intervention in their use are discussed. Intervention should be guided by the source of the affect involved in the client's distress (amygdala- or prefrontal cortex-generated emotion), the type of affect dysregulation involved (too much or too little emotion), and the type of change process to be used (quick change to improve coping or longer change to restructure character). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Personologic psychotherapy: Ten commandments for a posteclectic approach to integrative treatment.

Presents 10 commandments of integrative psychotherapy (IP) as a means of conveying themes in IP, including the view that (1) IP uses techniques that are selected only as a part of the overall constellation of treatment procedures employed; (2) the IP personality construct represents a combination of the cognitions, interpersonal behaviors, and unconscious mechanisms that characterize persons; (3) IP is most ideally suited to the treatment of personality disorders; and (4) personological psychotherapy is an integrative treatment strategy that uses counterpoised techniques to produce personality changes through combinational and sequential effects. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Dependency in psychotherapy: Toward an integrated treatment approach.

Briefly reviews empirical research on the etiology and dynamics of dependency, describes extant theoretical and clinical writings on dependency in psychotherapy, and presents an integrated treatment approach to working with dependent patients in the clinical setting. This treatment approach focuses, first and foremost, on altering the dependent patient's problematic cognitions and self-statements. In addition, this treatment approach strives to alter the dependent patient's motivations, behaviors, and emotional responses, with the aim of facilitating autonomous functioning and encouraging healthy interdependence in interpersonal relationships. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The formative method for adapting psychotherapy (FMAP): A community-based developmental approach to culturally adapting therapy.

How is psychotherapy culturally adapted for ethnic minorities? Although there has been growing interest in doing so, few therapy adaptation frameworks have been developed. The majority of these frameworks take a top-down theoretical approach to adapting psychotherapy. This article introduces a community-based developmental approach to modifying psychotherapy for ethnic minorities. The formative method for adapting psychotherapy (FMAP) is a bottom-up approach that involves collaborating with consumers to generate and support ideas for therapy adaptation. It involves 5 phases that target developing, testing, and reformulating therapy modifications. These phases include (a) generating knowledge and collaborating with stakeholders, (b) integrating generated information with theory and empirical and clinical knowledge, (c) reviewing the initial culturally adapted clinical intervention with stakeholders and revising the culturally adapted intervention, (d) testing the culturally adapted intervention, and (e) finalizing the culturally adapted intervention. Application of the FMAP is illustrated using examples from a study adapting psychotherapy for Chinese Americans, but it can also be readily applied to modifying therapy for other ethnic groups. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A fate worse than death: The fear of changing.

Contends that resistance is not solely that which blocks the patient's full living—it is also what makes possible the ways in which the patient does "have life." The ways in which persons come to structure who and what they are and what is the nature of the world in which they live are at once the ways that make it possible for them to live their lives and the ways that limit experience and keep them in self-defeating patterns. A clinical example of a 53-yr-old male who drove recklessly on the highway in order to act out his fear of change is given. It is suggested that resistance arises when important life structures are imperiled. The way the therapist perceives the nature of the life structures and the attitude the therapist takes toward the patient's efforts to preserve those structures are essential considerations. The healing power derives from attitudes, empathy, and faith in the growth latent in the patient. (3 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Holotropic breathwork: An experiential approach to psychotherapy.

Investigated the relationship between the use of Holotropic Breathwork and therapeutic changes in levels of distress associated with self-identified problems, death anxiety, self-esteem, and sense of affiliation with others. Two groups of 24 Ss (aged 22–50 yrs) were compared using a repeated measures design. One group participated in a combination of experientially oriented psychotherapy plus 6 monthly session of Holotropic Breath work (Breath work Group); the 2nd group participated only in experientially oriented psychotherapy (Therapy Group). Dependent measures were the Death Anxiety Scale, the Abasement and Affiliation subscales of the Personality Research Form-E, and a questionnaire regarding self-identified problems. The Breathwork Group showed significant reductions in death anxiety and increase in self-esteem compared to the Therapy Group. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A dialectic of experience: A radical empiricist approach to conflicting theories in psychotherapy.

Uses the radical empiricism of William James (e.g.,1890 [1981]), in combination with the work of G. A. Kelly (1963) and E. Husserl (1929 [1977], 1936 [1970]), in a dialectical exploration of the roots of the problem of psychotherapy theories. The convolutions and confusions that result from metaphysical pursuits are clarified, although no attempt is made to finalize any particular theory. The dialectic of experience, like a kind of cognitive therapy on psychotherapy theory itself, shows how differing sets of presuppositions have reframed and redefined primary experience to arrive at radically different, incompatible theories. The discussion leads to a common factor approach to psychotherapy research, practice, and theory that is cognizant of the dialectic of experience. The dialectic accommodates the insights of the various schools without sacrificing them in a superficial eclecticism. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Objective measurement of fear of success and fear of failure: A factor analytic approach.

Several objectively scored measures of fear of success and fear of failure have been designed in recent years, but there is little evidence that they measure 2 distinct, unidimensional constructs. The present study was undertaken primarily to determine if fear of success and fear of failure are operationally distinct and if all fear of success measures tap a single unidimensional construct. Eight Fear of Success and Fear of Failure scales (e.g., Sarason's Test Anxiety Scale and Alpert-Haber Achievement Anxiety Test) were administered to 415 male and female undergraduates, and the scores were intercorrelated. Results indicate that fear of success is not a unidimensional construct and that some of the measures of fear of success and fear of failure are highly related. Next, each scale was factor analyzed, and 37 new variables were created. These were in turn factor analyzed, and 5 highly stable orthogonal factors were obtained. One of these factors appears to be fear of success; another is clearly test anxiety (called fear of failure in the literature on achievement motivation). A 3rd factor is concerned with sex-role-related attitudes toward success in medical school. A 4th seems to reflect neurotic insecurity, and the 5th has to do with the value of success. Indices of psychological well-being and psychosomatic illness related differently to each of the 5 factors. Implications and further questions are discussed briefly. (29 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A regression analysis of the interactional approach to anxiety.

The use of ANOVA for analyzing interactional patterns of anxiety has received several criticisms. To date, however, few researchers have adopted process-oriented regression paradigms as a research alternative. In this study, 200 college students completed the S–R Inventory of General Trait Anxiousness and rating tasks that assessed their perceptions of different types of situations as well as their predictions of stress in those situations. In keeping with the interactional model of stress and anxiety, it was predicted that ratings of situations would be best predicted by trait-anxiety scores that correspond to the situation being rated. When Ss rated 2 situations involving physical danger, the interactional predictions were upheld. For ratings of personally threatening types of situations, however, the results were less clear. Results are discussed in terms of the effects of situational type and specificity. Implications for the theoretical and empirical accuracy of the interactional model are addressed. (French abstract) (25 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Curvilinearity between dream content and death anxiety and the relationship of death anxiety to repression-sensitization.

Discusses the merits of a defense mechanism model in the research dealing with death anxiety. The prediction was made that both high and low scorers on the Death Anxiety Scale (DAS) would report more unpleasant and death dream themes than Ss who score in the middle ranges of DAS. The Repression-Sensitization (R-S) Scale was used as a companion predictive instrument to the DAS. Findings are reported for 43 and 36 undergraduates, with 1 yr. intervening between data collections. Curvilinearity between DAS and dream content was found in both Samples 1 and 2. The R-S scale failed to predict comparably to the DAS, and some possible reasons for this difference are discussed. (18 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A self-determination theory approach to psychotherapy: The motivational basis for effective change.

The application of self-determination theory (SDT) to psychotherapy is particularly relevant because a central task of therapy is to support the client to autonomously explore, identify, initiate, and sustain a process of change. In this article, the authors discuss the experimental work, field studies, and clinical trials representing the application of SDT to the domain of psychotherapy. Evidence supports the importance of client autonomy for the attainment and maintenance of treatment outcomes. In addition, intervention studies suggest that therapist autonomy support enhances the likelihood that treatment gains will be achieved and maintained. The authors discuss some of the processes involved in enhancing autonomy, including the role of awareness, the importance of exploring and challenging introjects and external regulations, attention to need-related goal contents, and therapist attitudes required for a therapy approach that is process- rather than outcome-focused. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Clinical significance of psychotherapy for unipolar depression: A meta-analytic approach to social comparison.

[Correction Notice: An erratum for this article was reported in Vol 55(3) of Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology (see record 2008-10745-001). The data presented in Table 2 were incorrect because a row and a column were inadvertently omitted. The corrected Table 2 appears in the erratum.] This study used meta-analysis to study the clinical significance of psychotherapy for symptoms of unipolar depression. The following questions were addressed: How similar is the posttherapy adjustment of depressed adults to that of nondepressed adults? Is this adjustment maintained at follow-up? What dimensions of treatment, therapists, or design are associated with clinical significance? Using the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), we calculated composite BDI norms from 28 published studies. Sixty effect sizes (from 31 outcome studies utilizing the BDI) were calculated. The results indicated that psychotherapy produces outcomes that have moderate clinical significance and that are well-maintained at follow-up, that individual therapy is associated with greater clinical significance than group treatment, and that type of therapy is not related to improvement. Alternative approaches for operationalizing clinical significance as the return of individuals to normal levels of functioning are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Gifts in psychotherapy: An intersubjective approach to patient gifts.

Gift giving is a significant interpersonal event that has received relatively little attention in the psychotherapy literature, in spite of the fact that patients do give gifts to their therapists. Therapists' discomfort, uncertainty, or inexperience interfere with their ability to understand the meaning of a patient's gift and to provide a therapeutic response to it. Therapists' conviction, either to interpret all gift-giving behavior or to accept all gifts, also may limit their ability to understand the patient's subjective perspective. With a theoretical foundation in relational concepts, this article describes an approach in which both supportive and interpretive interventions are used to help patients address the organizing principles that give meaning to their experiences. The therapeutic value of supportive interventions such as gift acceptance, positive emotional responsiveness, and naming and describing are presented. Interpretations are used in this approach when gifts reflect a desire for reparation, displacement, and the projective identification of ingratiation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Male object loss: A special case of bereavement, anxiety, and fear.

Describes the experience of acute depression and bereavement following sudden termination of a young man's first consummated, heterosexual relationship and the effect of this clinical case upon the theoretical orientation of his therapist. Some of the factors in the young man's family background and history that contributed to the intensity of his reaction are considered. (24 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)