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Borderline personality disorder is a prevalent psychopathology; thus, most graduate students in psychology, residents in psychiatry, and early career clinicians will encounter patients with this disorder in the course of their training or initial professional practice. This paper provides clear and concise guidelines for conducting treatment geared toward the clinician's developmental level. It builds upon the knowledge and skills that are typically acquired during graduate education and training to provide an accessible framework for undertaking psychotherapy with patients who have borderline personality disorder. This paper draws upon common psychotherapeutic factors and existing evidence-based treatments for the disorder to identify principals and interventions that are likely to contribute to therapeutic action. It uses behavioral, cognitive, and psychodynamic interventions to address the patient's multidimensional psychopathology. This approach offers a coherent and integrated treatment framework for the beginning psychotherapy practitioner. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: This paper aimed to synthesize empirical findings of patient extratherapeutic interpersonal variables associated with individual psychotherapy treatment outcomes in adult outpatients with depression. Methods: A systematic search strategy was used to identify relevant studies. Thematic analysis was used to identify recurring themes in the findings. Results: Forty studies met search criteria. Three themes of patient extratherapeutic interpersonal variables were identified: capacity to engage with others, capacity to navigate relationships, and capacity to achieve intimacy, progressing from basic to advanced levels of interpersonal interaction. Interpersonal variables such as interpersonal distress and style, attachment orientation, and quality of object relations were particularly useful in predicting treatment outcomes, whereas access to social support and marital status provided mixed results, likely because they do not account for relationship quality. Conclusions: Recognizing variables associated with treatment response can help clinicians identify patients at risk for nonresponse and guide efforts for adapting existing therapies and developing new ones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Distress related to sexual orientation is a common focus in psychotherapy. In some instances the distress is external in nature as with persecution, and in others it is internal as with self-acceptance issues. Complicating matters, sexual orientation is a very complex topic producing a great deal of confusion for both clients and therapists. The current paper provides a four component model—sexual orientation dimensions, activation of these dimensions, the role of erotic fantasy, and social construction of sexual orientation—that in combination provide a comprehensive perspective. Activation of dimensions is a novel contribution not proposed in any other model. With improved understanding of sexual orientation issues, and utilization of this knowledge to guide interventions, psychotherapists can improve outcomes with their clients. Also described is how dimensions of sexual orientation relate to transgender. In addition to improving psychotherapy outcomes, the four-component model presented can help reduce discrimination and persecution, by demonstrating that the capacity for both homoerotic and heteroerotic behavior is universal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper 12 common errors that occur in the course of psychodynamic psychotherapy are reviewed. Rationales for why we consider these to be errors are described, and vignettes are used to illustrate the errors, lastly, recommendations for alternate approaches consistent with effective psychodynamic psychotherapy are presented. The errors reviewed include concerns regarding the maintenance of appropriate limits and boundaries; decisions regarding the focus and form of treatment; no-suicide contracts; fee arrangements; missed sessions; psychological testing of psychotherapy patients; selecting appropriate patients for psychotherapy; and the importance of personal psychotherapy for the therapist. The suggestions provided are consistent with what we believe are the goals of psychodynamic psychotherapy: autonomy, insight, and self-determination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a core component of multicultural orientation, cultural humility can be considered an important attitude for clinical supervisees to adopt and practically implement. How can cultural humility be most meaningfully incorporated in supervision? In what ways can supervisors stimulate the development of a culturally humble attitude in our supervisees? We consider those questions in this paper and present a model for addressing cultural humility in clinical supervision. The primary focus is given to two areas: (a) modeling and teaching of cultural humility through interpersonal interactions in supervision, and (b) teaching cultural humility through outside activities and experiences. Two case studies illustrating the model are presented, and a research agenda for work in this area is outlined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper describes how standard psychotherapy techniques need to be modified to suit the specialized needs of patients diagnosed with schizophrenia. Patients with psychosis often have lost their ability to use words to describe their inner states. As a result, traditional forms of psychotherapy which depend so crucially on the use of language are compromised. The goal of treatment at the start is to help the patient recover his ability to use language to describe his inner life. Eventually, this enables the patient to make use of more traditional forms of psychodynamic treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Davanloo's Intensive Short-term Dynamic Psychotherapy has been the subject of various reviews. Davanloo has published extensively on his early work, but there have been no publications on his most recent work--most notably his Montreal Closed-circuit training program. This program focuses on his most recent discoveries and techniques and is a unique, videotaped supervisory program. It focuses on self-assessment and peer-assessment. It is also a unique format in which to review Davanloo's theoretical conceptions of resistance and the transference component of the resistance. This paper will review the early work of Davanloo as well as his most recent research findings. A case from the Montreal Closed-circuit training program will be reviewed in detail to highlight these findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Radically Open-Dialectical Behavior Therapy (RO-DBT) is a transdiagnostic treatment designed to address a spectrum of difficult-to-treat disorders sharing similar phenotypic and genotypic features associated with maladaptive over-control--such as anorexia nervosa, chronic depression, and obsessive compulsive personality disorder. Over-control has been linked to social isolation, aloof and distant relationships, cognitive rigidity, high detailedfocused processing, risk aversion, strong needs for structure, inhibited emotional expression, and hyper-perfectionism. While resting on the dialectical underpinnings of standard DBT, the therapeutic strategies, core skills, and theoretical perspectives in RO-DBT often substantially differ. For example, RO-DBT contends that emotional loneliness secondary to low openness and social-signaling deficits represents the core problem of over-control, not emotion dysregulation. RO-DBT also significantly differs from other treatment approaches, most notably by linking the communicative functions of emotional expression to the formation of close social bonds and via skills targeting social-signaling and changing neurophysiological arousal. The aim of this paper is to provide a brief overview of the core theoretical principles and unique treatment strategies underlying RO-DBT. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Psychiatry and related mental health fields, in particular psychotherapy, have a long history of close ties with the humanities. That bond has weakened, however, over the last few decades as medicalized views of mental health and treatment have emerged. In this paper, we explore the potential of the reintroduction of the humanities, specifically novels and related literary genre, into the supervision of student clinicians working with clients who have psychosis. We believe that incorporation of novels and related literary genre into supervision can lead to unique and deepened understanding of the experience of psychosis, and can create an opportunity for a working therapeutic alliance. The potential mechanisms that create these unique opportunities to understand psychopathology are explored, and considerations for the implications for treatment, training, and future research are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: This paper assesses acculturation and ethnic matching of therapist and patient as predictors and moderators of treatment outcome in a 12-week effectiveness study of Interpersonal Psychotherapy for depressed adolescents (IPT-A) versus treatment as usual (TAU). The treatment was delivered in school-based health clinics in which care was provided for a predominantly Latino patient population. Methods: Birthplace, length of residence in the United States (U.S.), and therapist-patient ethnic matching were examined as predictors and moderators of treatment outcomes for depression, social functioning, and global functioning scores. Results: Birthplace significantly moderated treatment condition in predicting week 12 depression severity and improvement, and marginally significantly moderated treatment in predicting week 12 depression symptoms, with U.S.-born adolescents who received IPT-A having better outcomes. Birthplace predicted week 12 self-reports of depression, social (overall, school, and family) and global functioning, with U.S.-born adolescents faring worse across treatment conditions. Foreign-born adolescents treated with IPT-A as compared to TAU who lived for a longer period of time in the U.S. demonstrated better overall social functioning as compared to foreign-born adolescents who had lived for a shorter period of time in the U.S. Ethnic matching predicted significant reduction in depression severity and improved overall social functioning, and marginally significant improvement in week 12 depression scores, regardless of treatment condition. Conclusions: IPT-A may be a culturally responsive treatment for depressed Latino youth who are struggling with acculturation issues that affect their significant relationships. Ethnic matching appears beneficial for the general population in reducing depression and improving social functioning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]