Patient Focused And Feedback Research In Psychotherapy

In the last 15 years feedback interventions have had a significant impact on the field of psychotherapy research and have demonstrated their potential to enhance treatment outcomes, especially for patients with an increased risk of treatment failure. Current investigations on feedback research are concerned with potential moderators and mediators of these effects, as well as the design and the implementation of feedback into routine care. After summarizing the current state of feedback research, this book provides empirical investigations of contemporary feedback research. These efforts aim at answering three overarching questions: 1) How should we implement feedback systems into routine practice and how do therapist and patient attitudes influence its effects?, 2) How can we design feedback reports and decision support tools?, and 3) Why do patients become at risk of treatment failure and how should therapists intervene with these patients? The studies included in this book reflect the current state of feedback research and provide promising pathways for future endeavours that will enhance our understanding of feedback effects. This book was originally published as a special issue of Psychotherapy Research.

The wide gap between science and practice in psychotherapy is due in part to the one-way direction that has mostly defined the connection between researchers and clinicians, with researchers generating empirical knowledge with the hope that practitioners will implement it in their working environment. This traditional approach has not been optimal in addressing the day-to-day concerns of clinicians, or in providing easily generalizable practice guidelines in clinical routine. This book offers an alternative approach to psychotherapy research, based on a partnership between clinicians and researchers in different aspects of the decision, design, implementation, and dissemination of studies conducted in day-to-day practice. More specifically, it describes how to conduct practice-oriented research (POR) by presenting studies and lessons learned (in terms of obstacles faced, strategies used to overcome problems, benefits earned, and general recommendations) by eleven groups of who have been involved in POR in different settings around the world. The book provides tools to help clinicians be active participants in conducting clinically relevant studies, and set the agenda for future research. It seeks to foster collaboration between researchers and practitioners, generating knowledge that can improve our understanding of the process of change and the impact of psychotherapy. This book was originally published as a special issue of Psychotherapy Research.

“This book is clear, well-written, evidence-based, and timely. Combined with the authors’ decades of practice-based research and clinical experience, it describes a way helping professionals of all stripes can improve the results of psychological care.” Scott D. Miller, Ph.D., International Center for Clinical Excellence, USA “A must-read for every therapist, supervisor, researcher, manager – and client – in the field of mental health.” Helene A. Nissen-Lie, Professor in Clinical Psychology and Therapist, University of Oslo, Norway “The depth and breadth of these authors’ knowledge about progress monitoring shine through on every page.” Jacqueline B. Persons, Director, Oakland Cognitive Behavior Therapy Center and Clinical Professor, Department of Psychology, University of California at Berkeley, USA “I highly recommend this book to anyone wanting to work with a routine outcome monitoring (ROM) and feedback system in psychological therapies.” Professor Mike Lucock, Centre for Applied Research in Health, University of Huddersfield, UK. Based on the authors’ own varied and extensive experiences as practitioners, this clear and practical guide shows therapists and trainees how feedback can best be used to inform treatment decisions and, ultimately, improve patient outcomes. Key features include: • An up-to-date analysis of the current evidence base about the effectiveness of progress feedback • Advice on how to effectively implement Routine Outcome Monitoring in teams, services, and healthcare systems • Instructive clinical vignettes and examples of therapist-patient dialogue • Advice on how to deal with negative feedback • Clinical guidelines for therapists and guidance on translating theory into practice. Routine Outcome Monitoring and Feedback in Psychological Therapies brings together the collective wisdom of research leaders in the field and experienced therapists and patients to provide the go-to guide on how to integrate Routine Outcome Monitoring and feedback into psychological therapies. Kim de Jong, Ph.D. is Senior Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychology at Leiden University, the Netherlands and a cognitive behavioural therapist. She is one of the leading researchers on ROM and feedback and has implemented ROM in a wide variety of settings. Jaime Delgadillo, Ph.D. is Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of Sheffield, UK, and is trained as a psychoanalyst and cognitive behavioural therapist. He is known for the development and evaluation of feedback systems, digital health and AI technologies in the field of mental health. Michael Barkham, Ph.D., FBPsS is Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of Sheffield, UK and was previously Professor of Counselling and Clinical Psychology at the University of Leeds, UK. He is a well-known developer of outcome measures and has encouraged their use in routine practice over the past 35 years.

This research-to-practice manual introduces Routine Outcome Monitoring (ROM), a feedback-based approach to preventing impasses and relapses in couple and family therapy as well as within other psychotherapy approaches. This book discusses how ROM has been developed and experienced within the Norwegian couples and family therapy community in line with international trends of bridging the gap between clinical practice and research. Locating the method in evidence-based systemic practice, contributors describe the core techniques, tools, and process of ROM, including examples of effective uses of feedback over different stages of therapy, with individuals in family context, and implemented in different countries. Giving clients this level of control in treatment reinforces the concept of therapy as a collaborative process, fostering client engagement and involvement, commitment to treatment, and post-treatment progress. ROM is applicable across clinical settings and clinician orientations for maximum utility in work with clients, and in building therapeutic self-awareness. Features of the book:•Theoretical and empirical context for using ROM with families and couples.•Tools and procedures, including the Systemic Therapy Inventory of Change.•Guidelines for treatment planning, implementation, and evaluation.•Common challenges in using ROM with couples and families.•Supervisory, training, and ethical issues.•Examples and vignettes showing ROM in action. With its deep potential for promoting client progress as well as therapist development, Routine Outcome Monitoring in Couple and Family Therapy: The Empirically Informed Therapist will attract practitioners and research professionals particularly interested in clinical practice, client-directed methods, and couple or family therapy.

The essays collected in this volume address a wide spectrum of issues connected to traumatic events and experiences, be they of personal, collective, national or global scale. They are complemented by poetic contemplations on trauma, which set the tone for the following scholarly investigations. The thematic scope of the collection encompasses psychological, sociological and political approaches to trauma, examples of ethnic and indigenous traumatizations, literary, cultural and visual manifestations of trauma or the medialization of trauma in the museum. As a result of the comparative, and in some cases cross-hermeneutic, design of the volume with German scholars looking at Canadian and Canadian scholars looking at German/European examples of traumatization, transatlantic perspectives on the problems at stake are opened. Contributors: Dennis Cooley (Winnipeg), Martin Endress (Trier), James Fergusson (Winnipeg), Konrad Gross (Kiel), Ralf Hertel (Trier), Kristin Husen (Trier), Stephan Jaeger (Winnipeg), Uli Jung (Trier), Wolfgang Klooss (Trier), Martin Kuester (Marburg), Hartmut Lutz (Greifswald), Wolfgang Lutz (Trier), Adam Muller (Winnipeg), Markus M. Müller (Trier), Laurie Ricou (Vancouver), Susanne Rohr (Hamburg), Robert Schwartzwald (Montréal), Struan Sinclair (Winnipeg), David Staines (Ottawa), Katherine E. Walton (Toronto), Andrew Woolford (Winnipeg).

The wide gap between science and practice in psychotherapy is due in part to the one-way direction that has mostly defined the connection between researchers and clinicians, with researchers generating empirical knowledge with the hope that practitioners will implement it in their working environment. This traditional approach has not been optimal in addressing the day-to-day concerns of clinicians, or in providing easily generalizable practice guidelines in clinical routine. This book offers an alternative approach to psychotherapy research, based on a partnership between clinicians and researchers in different aspects of the decision, design, implementation, and dissemination of studies conducted in day-to-day practice. More specifically, it describes how to conduct practice-oriented research (POR) by presenting studies and lessons learned (in terms of obstacles faced, strategies used to overcome problems, benefits earned, and general recommendations) by eleven groups of who have been involved in POR in different settings around the world. The book provides tools to help clinicians be active participants in conducting clinically relevant studies, and set the agenda for future research. It seeks to foster collaboration between researchers and practitioners, generating knowledge that can improve our understanding of the process of change and the impact of psychotherapy. This book was originally published as a special issue of Psychotherapy Research.

Outcome research has documented worsening among a minority of the patient population (5 to 10%). In this study a psychotherapy quality assurance system intended to enhance outcomes in patients at risk of treatment failure was reviewed through the use of meta-analytic, mega-analytic, and multilevel analytic techniques. A pooled dataset from six major studies conducted at a large university counseling center and a hospital outpatient setting (N = 6151, mean age = 23.3 years, female = 63.2%, Caucasian = 85%) were re-analyzed to examine the effects of progress feedback on patient outcome. In this quality assurance system, the Outcome Questionnaire-45 was routinely administered to patients to monitor their therapeutic progress and was utilized as part of an early alert system to identify patients at risk of treatment failure. Patient progress feedback based on this alert system was provided to clinicians to help them intervene before treatment failure occurred. Intent-to-treat and efficacy analyses of the effects of feedback interventions were conducted to obtain the estimates of effects expected from implementation of this quality assurance system as a policy as well as in clinical trials. Three forms of feedback interventions?integral elements of this quality assurance system?were effective in enhancing treatment outcome, especially for signal alarm patients. Two of the three feedback interventions were also effective in preventing treatment failure (Clinical Support Tools and the provision of patient progress feedback to therapists). The Clinical Support Tool intervention was effective not only in terms of the amount of outcome enhancing effect, but also in the rate of patient recovery. The current state of evidence appears to support the efficacy and effectiveness of feedback interventions in enhancing treatment outcome.

Group psychotherapy in college counseling centers continues to thrive as a popular approach to working with college students, and yet there continues to be a lack of up-to-date, comprehensive resources for group psychotherapists working with this unique population. The College Counselor’s Guide to Group Psychotherapy highlights the role of the group therapist within college counseling centers; provides practical, step-by-step instructions for creating a thriving group program and culture; and unveils some of the opportunities to expand this under-recognized practice setting. This exciting new volume draws on the most current knowledge on group psychotherapy while paying particular attention to issues and ethical dilemmas that are unique to working with college students.