Chronic pain is a debilitating symptom that may or may not have an organic cause. In rural communities, chronic pain may be more difficult to treat due to patients’ limited access to care, lower socioeconomic status (SES), and geographic isolation (Thorn et al., 2011). Psychosocial approaches are viable options for treatment, including Cognitive Behavioral Therapy […]
I began my three-year term as the new Science and Scholarship Domain Representative for the Society for the Advancement of Psychotherapy on January 1, 2014. One of my key goals in this capacity is to support students and Early Career Psychologists (ECPs) who are interested in psychotherapy research. Students and ECPs often wonder how to build […]
The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice. So said Martin Luther King Jr. (1968). As I write this, on April 29, 2014, the sports world gave us proof of this. When the National Basketball League banned Donald Sterling for life from the NBA family and pressed for his removal […]
In the realm of group counselor training and development, an emerging area of research has addressed how novices differ from experts in their organization of domain knowledge. Existing research has investigated experts and novices’ knowledge structure about group members (Kivlighan, Markin, Stahl, & Salahuddin, 2007; Kivlighan & Quigley, 1991) and group leader interventions (Kivlighan & […]
Much of life is spent in motion—physical , mental/emotional, relational , and especially neural motion. Our conscious and non-conscious brain continually scans and interprets this motion, allowing us to focus our attention on other needs and desires, rather than having to pay attention to each motion as it occurs. In the absence of this scanning, […]
Two years after graduation from my doctoral program, a friend invited me to give a grand rounds presentation at a major university. Despite the fact that I was guaranteed a sympathetic audience and a topic I knew (it was whatever I wanted to speak on), I found myself reluctant to respond and even going to […]
Introduction Given the recent changes to the diagnostic criteria of eating and feeding disorders in the DSM-5, specifically the addition of Binge Eating Disorder (BED), I aimed to examine the current research supporting effective psychodynamic treatment of eating disorders (EDs) and how DSM-5 modifications will affect diagnosis, treatment, and awareness of EDs. There is a […]
Research on Internet-based psychotherapy treatments for depression, anxiety disorders and other conditions has grown rapidly during the past 15 years, and the evidence shows that some forms of Internet-based treatments often result in similar outcomes as traditional face-to-face psychotherapy. Surveys report lifetime prevalence rates of mental disorders of up to 47.4%, but only a small […]
Introduction In the June issue of Psychotherapy, Newman, Przeworski, Consoli, and Taylor presented a study on the use of a Palmtop computer-assisted therapy for generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) (Newman et al., 2014). Since developing prototypes for this computer program in the early 1990s, there have been significant advancements in the use of technology in health […]
Dr. Levenson talks about her transition from personality and social psychology to clinical psychology, her use of video recording in psychotherapy and supervision, her clinical work as couples counselor, advice to new therapists, and how teaching energizes her. Hanna Levenson, Ph.D. Dr. Levenson is an expert in time-limited dynamic, emotionally-focused, relational psychotherapy. She is a […]