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In this short response to the papers appearing in this special issue (Technology, AI Bots and Psychotherapy After Covid), psychotherapist and author Aaron Balick draws on the variety of themes that have arisen within the contributed papers to reflect on the wider issue of computer mediated human relations. In it he makes a distinction between the papers that focus on the therapeutic process mediated by technology and those that look more broadly at the paradigm of therapy practice in this context. Framing technology as a tool, the author pulls together both strands to explore what psychotherapy research may say about the broader issues of societies mediated by technology and how therapeutic research may contribute to these larger social issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This document introduces a special issue on technological applications in mental health and mental health services research. The advancements in computer technology have allowed for innovative applications in collecting and analyzing data related to mental health. The use of personal electronic devices and the internet provides a rich stream of data that can offer insights into individuals' mental health. The special issue includes papers on topics such as video therapy, measurements in daily life, and automated coding of psychotherapy sessions. These papers highlight the potential of technology in improving mental health outcomes and expanding the accessibility of mental health services. [Extracted from the article]

The principles of CBT emphasize the interactions among cognition, emotion, and behavior. CBT's origins lie in Stoicism philosophy and share similarities with the ideas of Confucianism, Taoism, and Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) in China. The idea of mind–body regulation in traditional Chinese culture has laid a cultural foundation for the promotion of CBT in China. This paper analyzes the applicability and challenges of CBT in China based on the current development of CBT in mainland China and the learning and practice of CBT therapists. It also explores the potential further development of CBT in China and the integration of CBT with the Chinese culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A gay identity offers a perspective outside heteronormative narratives characterized by exclusion as well as a radical position of difference. Being a psychotherapist, too, holds complex implications for identity. This paper explores the lived experience of gay male psychotherapists, a group whose voice is seldom heard. Based on interviews with six White South African gay male psychotherapists, a narrative analysis explores their experience of identity and voice. This paper highlights the ways in which the journey to occupying oneself as gay and the journey of becoming a therapist are intertwined. The complex power relations evoked in this experience are explored, and the position of the gay male therapist as "outside looking in" is interrogated as a position of marginality that both excludes and provides a unique vantage point from which to challenge exclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Therapeutic boundaries are limits to appropriate behaviours within a therapist–client relationship (e.g. related to accepting gifts, self‐disclosures, therapist neutrality and advocacy). Therapeutic boundary considerations are fundamental in the care of refugees and asylum seekers. Research on the experiences of therapists navigating such boundaries is sparse and warrants further exploration. The aim of this qualitative systematic review was to thematically synthesise literature regarding therapists' (psychologists, psychotherapists, counsellors) experiences of implementing flexible therapeutic boundaries with refugee and asylum seeker clients and determine how such applications have been helpful for therapeutic interventions. Method: Six databases were searched. Following full‐text screening, 21 papers were included in the analysis. Boundary theory underpinned the analysis. Results: Three major themes were developed: (i) Changes to Therapeutic Practice & Therapeutic Intervention, (ii) Re‐Conceptualisation of Therapy as 'Clinical Political' and Re‐Conceptualisation of Therapist Identity and (iii) Careful Monitoring of Personal Boundaries—Not becoming 'Hardened' or 'Haunted'. Papers described how, when used in a reflective, considerate way, flexible therapeutic boundaries can strengthen the therapist–client alliance and positively impact therapeutic interventions. Many therapists acknowledged making conscious efforts to re‐conceptualise therapeutic work with refugee and asylum seeker clients from advocacy standpoints. However, systemic constraints, and lack of guidance, made this difficult to navigate and contributed to therapist burn‐out. Conclusions: Boundary considerations manifested as interpersonal, structural and cultural changes to practice. These have implications for clinical practice and developing guidelines on boundary practices with refugees and asylum seekers. Future research should explore promoting therapist well‐being and training needs for therapists supporting this population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Qualitative exploration of the experience of psychoanalytic psychotherapy complemented the quantitative evaluation of mental health and life functioning improvements in the Melbourne Study of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy. Twice‐weekly treatment was offered to adults for 2 years by the private sector Glen Nevis Clinic for Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy, established by the Victorian Association of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapists as a subsidized, low‐cost community service over 8 years. This paper is the second of two presenting the qualitative arm of the study, involving in‐depth narrative interviews with patients and psychotherapists. Analysis of 143 transcripts further contributes to evidence of the Reach, Effectiveness, Adoption, Implementation and Maintenance of psychoanalytic psychotherapy in a community setting. The first qualitative paper reports themes concerning patient expectations of psychotherapy and perspectives of both patients and psychotherapists on the experience and benefits of the treatment. This paper reports what was perceived by participants as facilitative or challenging for therapeutic progress, illuminating how experiences of the nature of psychoanalytic psychotherapy may have affected the Implementation, Effectiveness and Maintenance of the program. The most notable facilitative factors emerging were the exploratory, insight‐oriented nature of the work, elements of the patient‐psychotherapist relationship, and the frame of the treatment. Challenges were also often seen as inherent to Effectiveness; however, proposing the frame of 2‐year treatment, as both an expectation and a limit, probably inhibited program Reach, Adoption and overall Implementation. The limitations and strengths of the qualitative arm of the research, together with implications for further investigation, are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The naturalistic, longitudinal Melbourne Study of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy was conducted in a subsidized community clinic established by the Victorian Association of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapists as a demonstration project operating over 8 years. It offered lower SES adults twice‐weekly psychoanalytic psychotherapy for 2 years. An independent research program used the RE‐AIM planning and evaluation framework to investigate the Reach, Effectiveness, Adoption, Implementation and Maintenance of the service. Complementary quantitative and qualitative methodologies studied mental health and general‐life functioning outcomes and underlying processes of treatment. Two papers present the qualitative arm of the research, exploring the lived experience of the psychotherapy, reported contemporaneously and retrospectively by patients and psychotherapists. This first paper details the qualitative design and methods employed. In‐depth semi‐structured narrative interviews during psychotherapy, upon completion at 2 years, and at an additional 8‐month follow‐up point for patients, were conducted. Analysis of the narrative transcripts of 143 participant interviews revealed themes regarding patient expectations of treatment and the perceptions of both patients and psychotherapists of the long‐term psychoanalytic psychotherapy experience and its benefits. Narratives thus provided evidence of the Reach, Effectiveness, Adoption, Implementation and Maintenance of the service. The findings enrich understanding of the effective processes underlying the outcomes of the quantitative arm of the study reported separately. The second qualitative paper presents the findings concerning participants' experiences of facilitative and challenging aspects of the treatment, as well as the implications of the qualitative findings overall. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper outlines the ways in which Karl Friston's work illuminates the everyday practice of psychotherapists. These include (a) how the strategic ambiguity of the therapist's stance brings, via 'transference', clients' priors to light; (b) how the unstructured and negative capability of the therapy session reduces the salience of priors, enabling new top-down models to be forged; (c) how fostering self-reflection provides an additional step in the free energy minimization hierarchy; and (d) how Friston and Frith's 'duets for one' can be conceptualized as a relational zone in which collaborative free energy minimization takes place without sacrificing complexity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The topic of language as power (LaP) in individual therapeutic encounters has thus far been overlooked, and as bilingual therapists have the ability to use more than one language in the therapy room, their experience of LaP is a compelling research area that this paper attempts to explore. This qualitative, inductive, phenomenological study used interviews and interpretative phenomenological analysis to explore five bilingual Arabic–English‐speaking therapists' experiences of LaP in the therapeutic encounter. The study identifies two overarching themes: (a) the emergence of identity and power from language and (b) comparisons of power in the English and Arabic languages. Within these themes, the study finds that therapists experience LaP through multiple avenues: self‐disclosure, intersectionality, being transported to different identities and expressions of power and power of expression in Arabic–English. These multiple avenues illustrate the complexity of LaP in the therapeutic encounter. The study sheds light on an underexplored area in psychotherapy, illuminating an important area for psychotherapists and training institutions to consider when working with clients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper highlights the limitations of narrative logic in mental health care, and in particular of "narrative vigilance"—the tendency to watch over experience via narrativisation, and to tether the concrete particulars of experience to the hypothetical structure of a narrative signification. Narrative logic is grounded in hypotaxis—the syntactic structuring whereby a discourse is characterised by different levels of subordination using linking words that connect, especially in terms of temporal and explanatory consequentiality. I offer an alternative approach based on parataxis—the practice of placing phrases or parts of speech next to each other without subordinating conjunctions. Sentences are juxtaposed without a clear connection; the contrast may generate novel and unexpected combinations between these dissimilar fragments. After distinguishing between parataxis and psychopathological phenomena like disturbances of association, I take inspiration from the work and life of a poet, Johann Christian Friedrich Hölderlin (1770–1843), considered among the greatest. He suffered for half his life from a severe form of mental illness that would perhaps, today, be diagnosed as schizophrenia. In the poems written during his illness, hypotaxis and narrative vigilance seem to blur, and parataxis takes centre stage. The fading of narrative structure in no way coincides with the absence of meaningfulness. Rather, meaningfulness is left to parataxis itself, that is, to the recombining power of words, sentences, and images. Parataxis itself can provide meaningfulness or, at least, provide the soil in which it can germinate. The void of narration opens the door for the fullness of "emergent" connections. In the final part of the paper, with the help of Freud's ideas on the relationship between "analysis" and "synthesis" in psychoanalytic treatment, some implications are derived about the relevance of parataxis to the logics of discovery in psychotherapeutic care, especially that of persons with severe mental conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the concept of treatment and healing in the twenty-first century, emphasising the importance of open-heartedness and more humanistic and compassionate approaches in psychotherapy. Drawing from the work of R.D. Laing, it critiques the continued over-reliance on pathologising, theorising and commodification in mental healthcare. Instead, it advocates for authentic care characterised by openness, spontaneity, accessibility and directness, aligning with an existential psychoanalytic sensibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The new psychotherapists' law in Germany requires that future studies in psychotherapy enable students to evaluate the evidence base of psychotherapeutic methods based on established criteria. This article summarizes and applies the most important national and international criteria for evaluating the evidence base of psychodynamic psychotherapy including the criteria detailed in the Methods Paper of the Scientific Advisory Board Psychotherapy in Germany, the internationally influential criteria by Chambless et al. (1998) as well as the most recent criteria by Tolin et al. (2015). Criticism of the criteria for evidence assessment (e.g., the disorder-specific approach), current controversies (e.g., concerning the evidence base of long-term psychodynamic therapy and analytic psychotherapy, integrative psychotherapy frameworks versus specific treatment approaches), and the relevance of the participation of practicing psychodynamic psychotherapists in research projects are addressed. For the adequate assessment of the efficacy/effectiveness of psychodynamic psychotherapy, especially long-term psychodynamic therapy and analytic psychotherapy, it is necessary to include longer follow-up periods and also to assess changes in accordance with psychodynamic assumptions about therapeutic change processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I determine how body psychotherapists can support clients' recognition of belonging to the natural world to support greater resilience and healing. The research begins by determining what multidisciplinary fields are saying about the importance of the relationship between humans and Earth. It then researches approaches from body psychotherapy that support resilience and healing, and highlights ways this overlaps with the research from multidisciplinary fields. From here, the Seasonal Attunement model was created. A case study shows the Seasonal Attunement model supporting a client in reclaiming her anger and the potential this suggests for bigger societal change. This leads to a discussion of possible implications of this research for the field of body psychotherapy, including why supporting clients' relationship to the natural world is imperative for well-being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to focus on an aspect of psychodynamic psychotherapy that includes psychoanalysis to illustrate the important element in the psychotherapeutic relationship called recognition. This involves an emotional sharing with the patient of the importance of particular life experiences that he has had and as such this not only cements the relationship but becomes the substrate of change and an internalization of the therapist that persists after the end of treatment. This interaction parallels the experience with a responsive mother able to echo the infant's experience. The experience of recognition is illustrated with 10 case presentations that demonstrate the power of this factor in a variety of patients ranging from brief consultations to psychoanalysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic psychotherapy have evolved deeply over the past half century. This paper shows some the changes I have witnessed in them, and the challenges we face in this change of era, at the edge of the first quarter of the twenty-first century. Some the challenges are examined: knowing how to transmit in our daily practice the essential relationality of the human being; the relational essence of the process of change through psychotherapy; and a review of our contribution to our institutions being genuinely relational, that is, that we take more care of the space that the Other can inhabit than of preserving our own. We need hope: the hope to change and (again) be people, in connection with others, regaining confidence and being able to be ourself (to be ourselves with others). That is the meaning of our activity, what it is to be a psychoanalyst/psychotherapist today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been a striking lack of interest in reforming training and creating new forms of transmitting the essential knowledge required to function as a psychoanalyst. This paper presents a model for training psychotherapists in use in Finland, in which private institutes offer training in collaboration with the universities. The roles and functions of the universities and the institutes in the training are described. The implications of this mixed-model training are discussed, viewed through the experiences of some teachers involved in implementing the model. The teachers were asked to describe their experiences in regard to certain questions: What happens, when a third party becomes involved in the training process? Is it possible to maintain a psychoanalytic curriculum of studies in such a context? What does the relative loss of autonomy signify? What are the implications for the psychoanalytic institutes? Regarding the content of the training, the experiences seem more positive than expected. Institutes seem to have managed to adapt to the new requirements while maintaining the psychoanalytic core of the training. However, the model contains elements that can pose threats to the roles of the institutes and the position of psychoanalytic thinking as the base for psychotherapy in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is a response to the papers in this special issue. It argues that change and learning is necessary to keep a contemporary psychotherapy practice. However, it asserts that change is also difficult because allowing ourselves to face our 'blind spots' may provoke uncomfortable feelings such as shame. It is therefore important for psychotherapists to be robust in managing the discomfort of learning. With this in mind, the article comments on the papers in this issue, which pay attention to the diversity of our modern populations – including LGBTQ+ people, people of diverse ethnic and racial identities and disabled people. The article argues that by embracing diversity the psychotherapy profession can continue to evolve, enabling it to support diverse communities in the best way possible. It asserts that each of the articles in this special issue invites the reader into a deep self-reflection, helping them to consider all the nuances of difference constructively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently there has been an increasing focus on the social justice agenda in counselling and psychotherapy. To ensure that this does not merely function as rhetoric, therapists must consider how to translate their social justice values into action. In this paper we aim to extend current understandings of social justice by foregrounding an emphasis on relational equality and power. We consider the importance of educational settings as a site of social justice action for therapists, and set out the Relational Equality in Education Framework as an illustration of how therapists might work to enhance relational equality in education on micro, meso and macro levels. Such efforts would ensure the social justice work of therapists takes an important shift from rhetoric to action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: This paper highlights the facilitation of dyadic synchrony as a core psychotherapist skill that occurs at the non-verbal level and underlies many other therapeutic methods. We define dyadic synchrony, differentiate it from similar constructs, and provide an excerpt illustrating dyadic synchrony in a psychotherapy session. Method: We then present a systematic review of 17 studies that have examined the associations between dyadic synchrony and psychotherapy outcomes. We also conduct a meta-analysis of 8 studies that examined whether there is more synchrony between clients and therapists than would be expected by chance. Results: Weighted box score analysis revealed that the overall association of synchrony and proximal as well as distal outcomes was neutral to mildly positive. The results of the meta-analysis indicated that real client-therapist dyad pairs exhibited synchronized behavioral patterns to a much greater extent than a sample of randomly paired people who did not actually speak. Conclusion: Our discussion revolves around how synchrony can be facilitated in a beneficial way, as well as situations in which it may not be beneficial. We conclude with training implications and therapeutic practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the field of psychotherapy, there is a gap in scientific knowledge concerning the paths and the impacts of using social media to advertise both psychotherapy and psychotherapists. With our study, we wish to contribute on that matter, directing our research specifically to this advertising on Instagram. We took Theory of Subjectivity as our theoretical frame because it allows visualizing and representing, in its complex understanding of human processes, the recursive ways in which human reality and action take place individually and socially in a concrete history and culture. Our goals were: 1) to investigate and discuss subjective configurations of psychotherapy in its advertisement on Instagram, and 2) from that, to debate the practice of psychotherapists. This paper is divided in: 1) introduction, 2) methodology, 3) information construction and analysis, and 4) final remarks. In the introduction, we present Theory of Subjectivity, debate the field of psychotherapy and define our investigation questions. In the methodology section, we discuss the method we used - constructive-interpretative method -, as well as present our research's participants, place and instruments. In the information construction and analysis section, that correspond to our results and our discussion, we present our hypotheticaltheoretical movement, recursively developed with what we experienced on the field, as well as show our theoretical production on the subjective processes of one of our research's participants. In the final remarks section, we address our investigation questions. The thoughts on the practice of psychotherapists that our study allowed us to weave are present in all sections of this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a phenomenological study that reveals how psychologists studying for a diploma in existential psychotherapy, in Lithuania, experience personally significant learning from a client in a therapeutic relationship. The structure of such experience is described and discussed in the context of existential-phenomenological practice and a broader psychotherapy research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bibliotherapy is the use of literature to facilitate the psychotherapeutic process and therapeutic reading is often used as an adjunct to various psychotherapy modalities. This paper presents a talk reporting on the initial findings of the use of bibliotherapy in existential psychotherapy, as three existential-phenomenological therapists have experienced it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The therapeutic relationship is a place in which the unresolved hurts, traumas, and confusions of the past, and confusions of the past, held in both the conscious and unconscious, can play out. Where we were hurt in relationship becomes the opportunity to heal in relationship. The therapist's job is to navigate the hurt toward healing. This paper is about that process and draws on a contemporary relational perspective on games, enactments, and the heart of deconfusion in psychotherapy. The author develops Sills's idea of the exploratory contract, introduces the therapeutic role of trouble in relation to affective confusion, and offers a model of the high dare/high care compass to navigate the ethical disorientation that forms a necessary foundation for deconfusion work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we describe the construction and assessment of membership to a football barra brava from the voices of a group of former members. We developed semi-structured interviews with seven former members of the barra brava Trinchera Norte (Peru), who attended the stadiums in the 1990s and played a leading role in the barra brava. The participants tell us that they built their membership from the interaction with a group of peers who shared an interest in a soccer team. In this group, behaviors that they assumed and that stand out today were developed and defined. Thus, they value camaraderie, resilience, pride and the fight for their goals and ideals as significant learning that they continue to apply in their lives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mindfulness-based therapies (MBTs) have shown promising results in non-psychotic disorders. Unlike most other psychotherapy models, which are claimed to be Western in origin, MBTs are firmly based in Indian philosophy and traditions. This paper summarises the concepts of the observer self (sakshi) and attention (dhyana) that underlie the principles and practice of MBT, correcting some erroneous assumptions in the process. It is argued that better understanding of these concepts is beneficial not just for specialist psychotherapists, but for all clinicians interested in the craft of healing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic created an unprecedented physical and mental health crisis on an international scale. Clients and therapists alike navigated the fears and uncertainty surrounding the virus, often in an environment of social isolation. The following paper presents a brief overview of the unique stressors and psychosocial factors impacting therapeutic work in the time of the coronavirus pandemic, including fears of the virus and social transmission, relational stressors due to isolation, grieving in isolation, fear of death, financial challenges, and the transition to telehealth. In addition, this paper aims to provide specific interventions and helpful approaches for psychotherapists navigating the novel challenges and demands to their clinical work through an AEDP (Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy) perceptive. This includes finding an entry point for accessing the pain: undoing aloneness; moving through the pain: dyadic affect regulation; and paying close attention to vitality within suffering: searching for transformance. Recommendations for the health and care of the clinician are also discussed, such as attuning to self-needs, anticipating and detecting dysregulation, staying with the good, meaning-making, identifying and responding to burnout, and the importance of receiving personal therapy and clinical supervision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on existential thought this paper examines trauma as a lived experience. By focusing on how trauma reveals itself and how it behaves in our everyday, the discussion delivers viewpoints which existential psychotherapists could consider when exploring their clients' trauma or even their own. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, in a Foucauldian argument, I draw attention to how psychotherapy is both produced and productive. I argue how psychotherapeutic theories and practices can contribute to generate hegemonic versions of subjectivity that limit the scope of alternative ways of living and feed into individualism. As Rose contends, the psy sciences, including psychotherapy, are highly influential in informing how we make sense of ourselves, and thus in how we produce ourselves. Psychotherapy – through assuming that its theories only reveal psychic mechanisms and that psychotherapeutic practice only helps people to know themselves better and develop – becomes extremely powerful in producing subjectivities whilst believing that it is only a matter of self-discovering. On this basis, I stress the need for questioning psychotherapy. In particular, I explore how engagement with authors associated with the so-called 'post' theories can transform psychotherapeutic theories and practices, including questioning the very existence of psychotherapy. As a psychotherapist myself, I attempt to stay uncomfortable and to allow myself to be moved while I grapple with what psychotherapy might become. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Carole Levaque, a nurse, psychotherapist, and psychoanalyst, passed away in 2022. She was known for her passion for life and her love of exploring new cultures and adventures. Carole co-founded the Puentes Psicoanalíticos con America Latina seminar, which aimed to build bridges between psychoanalytic communities in Canada, the US, and Latin America. She was also involved in various projects and presentations related to psychoanalysis. Carole worked in private practice for over 30 years and later volunteered at La Casa de la Familia in Peru, where she applied her psychoanalytic skills to help families and children in need. Upon her return to Montreal, she worked with Médecins du Monde, providing healthcare to the homeless and uninsured immigrants. Carole had a deep curiosity and desire to learn, and she enjoyed reading, traveling, and cooking. She was a private person but had friends all over the world. Before her passing, Carole completed a paper on "mourning one's own death," which was accepted for publication. She died surrounded by loved ones. [Extracted from the article]

Psychotherapy had developed into a dynamic and diverse field in pre-war Japan. Apart from thousands of spiritually oriented lay psychotherapists, there were a few quasi-professional practitioners who insisted on a rational approach and experimented with a variety of psychotherapeutic methods. Among them was Kokyō Nakamura, whose quest for a viable psychotherapeutic method is intriguing and illuminating. This paper examines the evolution of Nakamura's theories and practices by dividing it into three stages: hypnotic suggestion, psychoanalysis, and Morita therapy. His pragmatic and adaptive approach to psychotherapy provides not only an interesting example for studying the spread of psychotherapy across nations and cultures, but also valuable clues to understanding its nature as a body of knowledge and therapeutic method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2019, mass infections caused by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus and the disease caused by it became the reason for global social, economic and health crises. This situation required changes, also in the field of psychotherapeutic practice and the implementation of new solutions. One of the possibilities of continuing services provision was to start the Internet usage Aim: The purpose of this paper is to review the latest research related to the experiences of psychotherapists working online during the pandemic. An additional goal is to present the broadest possible analysis of the literature based on research conducted in various countries around the world. Materials: Google Scholar, PubMed, Scopus and PsycNet were searched for a review. From among the search results that met the general criteria, those related to psychotherapeutic practice in the given countries were selected. Conclusions: Online psychotherapy has become a significant component of psychotherapeutic practice during a pandemic. Earlier expectations and concerns could be verified. The presented results of selected studies create a picture of the functioning of psychotherapists in many countries and constitute the basis for future research and forecasts for the development of psychotherapy after the pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite a plethora of texts on the 'wounded healer', little systematic research has been conducted on unpacking the implications and embedded assumptions of this concept. This paper takes the 'wounded healer' into the research arena by approaching it reflexively as an analytic tool to explore therapists' personal and professional development. Six therapeutic practitioners who identified with the concept were selected by means of theoretical sampling and were interviewed with a view to provide a narrative of their development as 'wounded healers'. Interviews were analysed using a tailored, multi-lens approach within a narrative epistemology. Besides attending to the narrative features of the accounts, the paper discusses findings in relation to three key themes: 'entering a community of wounded healers'; 'formulating the wounded healer'; and 'deconstructing the wounded healer'. Unpacking this modality flexible yet historically loaded construct necessitates challenging the 'wounded healer' as fixed identity and replacing it with an ethos that can lead to training, supervisory, and clinical recommendations facilitating psychotherapists' reflection on their woundedness. This complex process could allow them to engage in all aspects of professional practice, including research, from a position of an expert by both experience and training. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the case of psychological treatments, these outcome monitoring tools consist of psychological self-report scales (patient-reported outcome measures, PROMs), which are filled out by the patient usually before each session to capture ongoing therapeutic change. Routine outcome monitoring (ROM) is the regular assessment of patient outcomes to evaluate clinical progress during the course of therapy. Idiographic patient reported outcome measures (I-PROMs) for routine outcome monitoring in psychological therapies: Position paper. [Extracted from the article]

This paper describes how to culturally enhance social prescribing as a community practice in accordance with the ethno biopsychosocial human rights model for educating community psychologists and psychotherapists. It provides a literature review and an overview of the procedures on how to translate the theory into practice. It expands therapeutic approaches as a multidiscipline that involves community psychology, psychotherapy and sports and exercise psychology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effects of war on combat veterans' mental health are numerous and well established. Several effective interventions exist based on cognitive-behavioural therapy that aim to reduce the symptoms of anxiety, depression and PTSD that many veterans struggle with. However, little attention has been paid to psychodynamic psychotherapy and documenting its use in treating the sequelae of war trauma. Furthermore, very few writings discuss how working with combat veterans within a psychodynamic framework can affect the therapist. This paper presents the case of 'Sam', a combat veteran who suddenly disappeared from psychotherapy after some years in treatment. The author reflects on the issues that arose in this course of therapy with the aim to stimulate further reflection in practitioners working with veterans drawing upon a psychodynamic model. It is hoped that readers and organisations supporting veteran mental health will develop an appreciation of the intricacies of psychodynamic psychotherapy with combat veterans, understand the importance of the therapeutic alliance, appreciate the impact that working with combat veterans may have on themselves and the importance of seeking and maintaining high-quality supervision and reflection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In creating a research project to examine the effects of somatic psychotherapy, the authors needed a measure to gather somatic data to be filled out by therapists. After multiple iterations, and balancing clinician experience with research efficacy, we created the Somatic Post-Encounter Clinical Summary (SPECS). SPECS is a onepage tool to track and measure the process, interventions, and qualitative outcomes of somatic psychotherapy, to train somatic psychotherapists, and to structure data collection of their sessions. This paper explains the development, methodology, and usage of SPECS for clinicians as well as researchers. SPECS helps clinicians reflect on their practice and improve their skills, as well as providing a simple uniform structure for many different specialists to report on the process of somatic psychotherapy. SPECS also can be used in larger research projects for gathering data about the process and efficacy of somatic psychotherapy. We hope that it will be widely used and improved by practitioners and researchers in our field as well as adjacent and related fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the disciplines of philosophical practice and existential psychotherapy focusing on their similaritie. Both disciplines are characterized by the important role they ascribe to philosophical notions and methods. For example, some of the practitioners understand their work to be about a philosophical exploration of the topics raised by the client. These topics, depending on the different perspectives, may or may not be strictly related with the client’s personal issues. Another traits shared by the two disciplines is the wide range of methodologies they employ. In fact, every philosophical practitioner or existential psychotherapist have developed a particular approach, even though there are a number of basic assumptions shared by the totality of the practitioners. The major differences between philosophical practice and existential psychotherapy stem from the demarcation of their respective fields. On one hand, there are a few philosophical practitioners considering their activity a form of counselling and open to label their discipline philosophical counselling. Others, instead, prefer to stress their link with academic philosophy, rejecting any view that takes philosophical practice to be a form of therapy. Among existential psychotherapists there is a similar division, with a group accepting the idea of discussing philosophical topics and assuming a philosophical perspective (one questioning the client’s system of belief rather than applying the traditional framework following the scheme symptoms-identification, diagnosis, cure) as part of their discipline, while other therapists prefer to keep any intellectual discussion away from the therapeutic sessions. Some of them, however, endorse a philosophical preparation for therapists in order to improve their understanding of their discipline. This paper focuses on the traits of the disciplines that determine the resemblance between philosophical practice and existential psychotherapy. These traits are the anti-psychiatric tendencies, the notion of the practitioner’s authenticity, the cooperative character of the relationship between practitioner and client, the priority given to a flexible approach over a structured one, a tragic understanding of the idea of life and a shared intellectual background, namely a humanistic conception of the practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the main events and circumstances of establishing psychotherapy as an autonomous profession and also details the specifics of its regulation in Croatia. As no previous research has been published on the topic, this paper has analysed archival documents together with expert interviews to provide the chronology and give an interpretation of the main events. Psychotherapists with different professional backgrounds, trained in diverse approaches, began the quest for the professionalization of psychotherapy in the late 1990s. The formation of an umbrella psychotherapy association and its development marked the progress towards the Law on Psychotherapy Practice that was enacted in July 2018. The Croatian Law on Psychotherapy Practice is discussed in the context of the development of psychotherapy in Croatia and laws and regulations on psychotherapy in other European countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Legal liability of a psychotherapy provider in non-medical facilities and the related death of a psychotherapist from a legal point of view The topic of the paper is an analysis of selected legal aspects of the legal liability of psychotherapy providers outside health care facilities and the legal consequences of the death of such a psychotherapist in the context of client data protection [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Questionable health practices, be it non-adhering to official recommendations or resorting to non-evidence based ones, pose a considerable burden to public health. Research in this special issue explores the psychological roots of proneness to this type of health behavior. The authors look into individual differences in personality traits, cognitive styles, but also situational factors such as institutional trust and feeling of economic/health threat as predictors of a broad range of behaviors: non-compliance with COVID health measures/prescribed prophylactic regimen for chronic illnesses, avoiding vaccination, but also endorsing supplements and herbal remedies or alternative psychotherapies. This collection of papers offers valuable insights that could be implemented in tailoring short-term (pandemic-related messages) and long-term (building more trust in institutions or science) guidelines for health communicators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper illustrates the role of child psychotherapists on Neonatal Units as reaching beyond the direct work with parents and babies to include an engagement with the staff's internal representations of the organisational sphere within which they are positioned. An understanding of the 'organisation in the mind' requires consideration of multiple levels, including the organisational and social processes that shape individuals' experiences. Through the use of composite case studies inspired by my work on a Special Care Baby Unit (SCBU), I argue that psychoanalytically informed practice within these settings can include indirect and often unplanned interventions aimed at lessening socially structured defences and creating opportunities for thinking for both parents and staff. In my conclusions, I suggest that the role of child psychotherapists on these units, with its understanding of unconscious internal processes and organisational dynamics, can promote reflective practice and facilitate oedipal growth at both the individual and organisational level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper outlines ways in which more traditional psychoanalytic technique has been challenged by new findings about trauma and the optimal ways in which it can be worked with. In particular it outlines how therapists need to become much more knowledgeable about the risks of retriggering PTSD symptoms, and about dissociative symptomatology. In addition, in some cases it is suggested that psychoanalytic therapists might become braver in helping victims of trauma to feel anger about what happened to them, and that often for optimal recovery anger and rage needs to precede remorse, reparation and a bearing of depressive anxieties [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 crisis has provided unique opportunities for the expansion of telepsychotherapy services. To date, the extant literature on telepsychotherapy has not included many strategies for effective telepsychotherapy with youth and families. This paper examines the evolution of a play psychotherapy case conducted fully online amidst the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. A review of the telepsychotherapy literature is provided and multiple aspects of online psychotherapy are explored within the context of a completed, online psychotherapy treatment with one eight-year-old girl with externalizing symptoms. This case study is the first start-to-finish online case of Regulation Focused Psychotherapy for Children, and to our knowledge one of the few known case studies of a completed, fully online, child psychotherapy case. Clinical vignettes illustrate how the therapist's interpretation of the child's defenses within an online modality allowed the child to progress in her ability to tolerate painful emotions. In addition, countertransference reactions of a novice therapist, treating her first psychotherapy patient, are highlighted. This unique case study provides support for the value of an online, play-based treatment for children with behavioral issues and their families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reflexivity is a concept that is increasingly gaining prevalence in the literature of professional practice and it has been defined in a variety of ways; however, the differences in definition largerly depend on the context. Therefore, reflexivity development is the main goal of supervision; it is a powerful instrument that can impede the psychotherapist’s connection with his client, but there is no answer on what specifically enhances or decreases reflexivity during the supervision process. In the scientific articles analyzing supervision, there is no clear definition of the phenomenon of reflexivity and there is also a lack of empirical studies of reflexivity in supervision. The aim of this paper is to present our own definition and theoretical model of reflexivity in the psychotherapy supervision process as well as distinguish reflexivity between adjacent concepts like “reflection,” “self-reflection,” and “self-reflexivity.” We carried out a systematic review of literature within three databases and created a theoretical model of reflexivity in psychotherapy supervision. We also discuss the guidelines and methods for further empirical investigations of this phenomenon in psychotherapy supervision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are three parts to this paper. The first reviews how some existential philosophers have talked about education. The second considers how this has been used by subsequent writers. And the third links all this to the education of psychotherapists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on the notion of ‘the echo-chamber’, this paper examines the existence of an insular bubble amongst existential psychotherapists when discussion turns to ‘schizophrenia’. Improved dialogue between existential psychotherapy and contemporary psychiatry is encouraged with consideration as to how we might retain philosophical and ethical integrity for such conversations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This theoretical paper aims to bring Levinas’ ethics and its key points into the reflection of basic assumptions of psychotherapy and a therapist-patient relation. The Levinasian ethical understanding of human relation emphasizes its original asymmetry. It is me who is responsible more than the others. Therefore, we question whether it is possible to understand a psychotherapeutic relation in this way and see the patient as the other. Since this profession is a calling to respond to some stranger, who exposes itself as vulnerable and speaks to the therapist. The main thesis is that psychotherapist’ acceptance of its incalculable responsibility in practice is what helps him or her being human and focusing not only on measurable results but on the person entrusted to him or her. Psychotherapist feels its own responsibility as burdensome because of the trust that was put in him or her, however, finds its uniqueness and freedom at the same time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]