Search

Minority stress has been determined to contribute to some mental health concerns for transgender, nonbinary, and gender nonconforming individuals, yet little is known regarding interventions to decrease the effects of minority stress. The purpose of this pilot study was to assess the feasibility and relative effectiveness of two interventions developed for work with transgender clients. Transgender individuals (N = 20) were recruited to participate in a randomized controlled trial comparing two psychotherapy interventions for transgender adults seeking psychotherapy for a variety of concerns: (a) transgender affirmative psychotherapy (TA) and (b) Building Awareness of Minority Stressors + Transgender Affirmative psychotherapy. Gender-related stress and resilience were assessed before, immediately after, and 6 months following the intervention; psychological distress and working alliance were assessed at these three time points as well as weekly during the intervention. Feasibility and acceptability of the study and psychotherapy interventions were supported. Exploratory analyses indicate improvement in both groups based on general outcome measures; targeted outcome measures indicate a trend of improvement for internalized stigma and nonaffirmation experiences. Results from this study support further evaluation of both treatment arms in a larger randomized controlled trial. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Much has been written in recent years regarding the integration of social justice values with psychology and psychotherapy; however, the discourse surrounding social justice perspectives related to conducting psychotherapy research is scant. Psychotherapy researchers are beholden to various professional ethical standards, laws, and policies; however, adhering to these rules and guidelines may make research ethical, but not necessarily socially or politically just. In this article, the authors build on previous work from community, feminist, positive, and multicultural psychology perspectives as well as their own experiences as psychotherapy researchers, to propose a framework for approaching psychotherapy research from an ethical and socially just position. Examples from the authors' experiences conducting psychotherapy research with incarcerated individuals, community- and school-based research with youth, and research with sexual/gender minorities are provided to illustrate theoretical principles and provide practical recommendations. Barriers to implementing such a framework to psychotherapy research, as well as strategies to manage these challenges are also discussed. In addition, the authors propose a model that can be used to develop and evaluate the social justice process and content dimensions of a research study. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

The Behavioral Health Measure-20 (BHM-20; Kopta & Lowry, 2002) through the computer-based CelestHealth System-MH (CHS-MH) has proven to be an effective and efficient instrument for assessing psychotherapy outcomes and providing feedback to psychotherapists. This article describes its features, the psychometric and research support of the measure, as well as its use in clinical training and practice. Additionally, we offer some hopes and possibilities for the future of clinical feedback systems.

This study investigated psychotherapy trainees' ability to facilitate change in outcomes (e.g., well-being, symptom reduction, and life functioning) specifically related to the phase model. Four different psychotherapist experience levels (beginning practicum, advanced practicum, intern/postdoc, and psychologist) were compared to determine whether there are training differences related to significant change for psychotherapy outcomes according to the phase model. A total of 1,318 clients from a university counseling center, treated by 64 psychotherapists, were included in the analysis for this study. Results indicate that interns/postdocs' clients achieve more significant change than psychologists' and advanced practicum students' clients related to life functioning. In addition, interns/postdocs' clients achieve more significant change related to symptom reduction, when compared with the clients of psychologists. Implications for these results, given the hypotheses of both the phase model and competency models, are discussed.