Integrating Social Cognition Into Therapeutic Practice

This book presents a new model for conceptualizing and applying a social and cognitive perspective on therapeutic practice. Building on the micro-skills framework for training, the author adds cognitive modifiability theories to create a social cognition approach to training and practice. The material has been field tested in a graduate academic context and in consultation in mental health settings, and chapters contain didactic explications, illustrative examples, practice exercises, and graphic schemas to help readers integrate specific practices into a broader comprehensive theoretical framework. Mental health professionals and students in advanced counseling courses will find that this book broadens their perspectives beyond basic micro-skills approaches and provides an expansive and systematic framework for conceptualizing the therapeutic process.

There are a plethora of questions experts are asking surrounding the intersection of clinical intervention practices with social cognition. How do neuro-cognitive processes shape social understanding? What experimental methods illuminate social cognitive complexities? How can social cognition be applied practically in clinical contexts and psycho-social rehabilitation? How does social cognition influence decision-making and cross-cultural perspectives? To find the answers to these concerns, researchers can now look to Principles and Clinical Interventions in Social Cognition, a research book which delves into recent advances, practical applications, and future trajectories within the intricate relationship between social processes and cognitive mechanisms. It adopts a unique structure, each chapter offering a concise introduction to a specific aspect of social cognition. From foundational principles to applications in clinical interventions and individual well-being, it covers neuro-cognitive processes, experiments, and social cognition in various clinical and health conditions. The interdisciplinary nature of this book makes it an authoritative resource for professionals, researchers, and students in psychology, neuropsychology, cognitive psychology, cognitive neuroscience, social work, sociology, management, allied health sciences, and other areas of social science.

This book portrays an extensive and intensive discussion of theories and research that refer to Vygotsky’s and Feuerstein’s theories of mediated learning and their effects on learning potential and cognitive modifiability. Most topics are discussed in relation to a broad spectrum of developmental and cognitive research that are under the conceptual umbrella of mediated learning and cognitive modifiability. Some topics such as neural plasticity, executive functions, mental rotation, and cognitive education are related to mediated learning, though indirectly, and therefore are included in this book. In many ways the book presents an extension of Vygotsky and Feuerstein’s theories and empirical validation in a variety of family, social and cultural contexts. The book includes a thorough analysis and summary of 50 years of research and methodology of the intimate relation between mediated learning interactions and cognitive modifiability and of dynamic assessment underlying measurement of cognitive modifiability. Special emphasis is given to Tzuriel’s dynamic assessment instruments developed during more than four decades. Tzuriel’s novel instruments are interwoven in the extensive research on parent-child interactions, siblings’ , teachers' and peers' mediation and in validation of dynamic assessment approach and cognitive education programs aimed at development of thinking skills and academic achievements.

This book defines and examines the needs of the marginalized student and presents a theoretically grounded model to guide institutions of higher education toward developing new and more effective programmatic responses. Taking the implementational experience of the University of the Free State (UFS) in Bloemfontein, South Africa, as a case study, it investigates the experience of students who present problems of learning and inadequate preparation for sustained performance, including learning disabilities, lack of study skills, motivational factors, and cultural support systems. Further, it identifies the pressure for institutions to be responsive to social and political pressures to accommodate the needs of students previously excluded from participation in higher educational or vocational training opportunities. In addressing this timely area of development, the authors formulate a unique conceptual foundation for the consideration of a new paradigm, based on cognitive and biosocial theories: those of the theory of structural cognitive modifiability and mediated learning experience and of Feuerstein and Bronfenbrenner’s ecosystem structural orientation. Innovative, applicational, and optimistic in nature, this book will appeal to scholars, researchers, administrators, and postgraduate level students working across the fields of higher education, educational psychology, and student counseling.

This book sets out a cognitive perspective on clinical social work practice that emphasized the role of social sources of information in shaping personal meanings. It draws on a number theoretical perspectives to explain how the mind works and integrates them within a framework that suggests that people operate according their sense of what things mean, and that these meanings are a function of memory networks of previous experiences and the nature of the new information that they encounter.

Research shows that neuro- and social cognition have a decisive influence on functional outcome in people with schizophrenia. In this publication, world-renowned experts summarize the latest research on approaches to assessing and treating cognition in schizophrenia. The book is organized to take the reader through the steps from definitions and assessment of cognition to research on the relevance of cognition in everyday life, to chapters which focus on treatments for cognitive disorders. The reader will learn about the NIMH MATRICS initiative which has provided clinicians and researchers with the tools to define and assess neuro- and social cognitive functioning in people with schizophrenia. Then the treatments for neuro and social cognitive deficits are discussed in several chapters which give an overview of cognitive remediation approaches, accompanied by concrete treatment examples. The reader will also learn about the latest results of pharmacological interventions for cognitive deficits. A final chapter focuses on the importance of addressing motivational deficits when treating cognition, and offers treatment approaches to enhance motivation. This publication is essential reading for clinicians and researchers in the fields of psychiatry, psychology as well as students and other professions working with people who have schizophrenia.

This edition of the Handbook follows the first edition by 10 years. The earlier edition was a promissory note, presaging the directions in which the then-emerging field of social cognition was likely to move. The field was then in its infancy and the areas of research and theory that came to dominate the field during the next decade were only beginning to surface. The concepts and methods used had frequently been borrowed from cognitive psychology and had been applied to phenomena in a very limited number of areas. Nevertheless, social cognition promised to develop rapidly into an important area of psychological inquiry that would ultimately have an impact on not only several areas of psychology but other fields as well. The promises made by the earlier edition have generally been fulfilled. Since its publication, social cognition has become one of the most active areas of research in the entire field of psychology; its influence has extended to health and clinical psychology, and personality, as well as to political science, organizational behavior, and marketing and consumer behavior. The impact of social cognition theory and research within a very short period of time is incontrovertible. The present volumes provide a comprehensive and detailed review of the theoretical and empirical work that has been performed during these years, and of its implications for information processing in a wide variety of domains. The handbook is divided into two volumes. The first provides an overview of basic research and theory in social information processing, covering the automatic and controlled processing of information and its implications for how information is encoded and stored in memory, the mental representation of persons -- including oneself -- and events, the role of procedural knowledge in information processing, inference processes, and response processes. Special attention is given to the cognitive determinants and consequences of affect and emotion. The second book provides detailed discussions of the role of information processing in specific areas such as stereotyping; communication and persuasion; political judgment; close relationships; organizational, clinical and health psychology; and consumer behavior. The contributors are theorists and researchers who have themselves carried out important studies in the areas to which their chapters pertain. In combination, the contents of this two-volume set provide a sophisticated and in-depth treatment of both theory and research in this major area of psychological inquiry and the directions in which it is likely to proceed in the future.

This book contains concrete and step by step information with many practical examples. It is in line with the most actual international empirical findings about schizophrenia and contains the most updated therapy approach being available currently. The techniques and exercises (partly computer-based) are described in detail. Case examples point out specific therapeutic situations and teach the therapist how to cope with complicated group and individual demands. Assessment for patient selection, differential indication and therapy control within a multi-dimensional treatment and rehabilitation system are discussed. INT was evaluated successfully in an international randomised multi-centre study. In the meantime it is implemented in many clinical settings in German speaking countries. Integrated Neurocognitive Therapy (INT) is a cognitive remediation therapy approach. INT is the first treatment manual comprising all MATRICS areas (Measurement and Treatment Research to Improve Cognition in Schizophrenia). The NIMH (National Institute of Mental Health, USA) initiated this MATRICS initiative. MATRICS defines 11 neurocognitive and social cognitive areas of functioning being relevant for patients with schizophrenia. The improvement of these areas in a group therapy is the main goal of INT. INT is based on IPT (Integrated Psychological Therapy, Roder et al 2010). It is a resource and a recovery oriented intervention to enhance also therapy motivation and self-esteem and to reduce negative symptoms. Therapy focuses especially on group processes and the exercises augment transfer and generalisation to daily life. As a meta goal INT intends to amend life quality and the reintegration of the patients in the community. The presented manual offers the clinicians a practically orientated guide for carrying out INT.