Interpersonal sensitivity predicts slower change and less change in anxiety symptoms in cognitive behavioural therapy.

OBJECTIVES: Patients in cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) who are high in interpersonal sensitivity may have difficulty fully engaging in treatment because therapy sessions require intimate interpersonal interactions that are especially uncomfortable for these individuals. The current study tests the hypotheses that patients who are high in interpersonal sensitivity benefit less from CBT for symptoms of depression and anxiety, show a slower rate of change in those symptoms, and are more likely to drop out of treatment. METHODS: Participants were 832 outpatients who received naturalistic CBT. We assessed interpersonal sensitivity before treatment began and depression and anxiety symptoms at every therapy session. We assessed early, premature, and uncollaborative termination after treatment ended. We constructed multilevel linear regression models and logistic regression models to assess the effects of baseline interpersonal sensitivity on the treatment outcome, the slope of change in depression and anxiety symptoms, and each type of dropout. RESULTS: Higher baseline interpersonal sensitivity was associated with a slower rate of change and less overall change in anxiety but not depressive symptoms. Baseline interpersonal sensitivity was not a predictor of dropout. CONCLUSIONS: Interpersonal sensitivity at baseline predicts less change and a slower rate of change in anxiety symptoms. Early detection of elevated interpersonal sensitivity can help therapists take action to address these barriers to successful treatment and help scientists build decision support tools that accurately predict the trajectory of change in anxiety symptoms for these patients.

Using the Beck Depression Inventory to Assess Anhedonia: A Scale Validation Study.

Anhedonia is central to several psychological disorders and a frequent target of psychosocial and pharmacological treatments. We evaluated the psychometric properties of two widely used anhedonia measures derived from the Beck Depression Inventory: a 3-item (BDI-Anh3) and a 4-item version (BDI-Anh4). We evaluated these measures in a large undergraduate sample, a community sample, and a clinical sample. Both the BDI-Anh3 and the BDI-Anh4 showed adequate internal consistency, with BDI-Anh4 performing somewhat better, across the three samples. Both measures showed good convergent and discriminant validity, even after controlling for shared variance with other items on the BDI. These findings indicate that both measures have sufficient reliability and validity to support their use by researchers and clinicians.

Changes in affective and cognitive distortion symptoms of depression are reciprocally related during cognitive behavior therapy.

We tested the predictions from Beck's cognitive theory that change in cognitive distortions precedes and predicts change in affective symptoms of depression, and his secondary prediction that change in affective symptoms precedes and predicts change in cognitive distortions during the course of cognitive behavior therapy (CBT; Beck, 1963). We used bivariate latent difference score modeling to examine change in affective and cognitive distortion symptoms of depression over time in a sample of 1402 outpatients who received naturalistic CBT in a private practice setting. Patients completed the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) at each therapy session to monitor their progress in treatment. We selected items from the BDI to create measures of affective and cognitive distortion symptoms that allowed us to assess change in those phenomena over the course of treatment. We examined BDI data from up to 12 sessions of treatment for each patient. As predicted by Beck's theory, we found that change in cognitive distortion symptoms preceded and predicted change in affective symptoms of depression, and that change in affective symptoms preceded and predicted change in cognitive distortion symptoms. Both effects were small in size. These findings support the notion that change in affective and cognitive distortion symptoms of depression each precedes and predicts the other - that is, they are reciprocal in nature during cognitive behavior therapy. We discuss implications of our findings for the nature of the change process in CBT.

Relationship to CBT outcome and dropout of decision support tools of the written case formulation, list of treatment goals and plot of symptom scores.

Many patients who receive cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) for mood and anxiety disorders fail to respond or drop out of treatment. We tested the hypotheses that therapist use of each of three decision support tools, a written case formulation, a list of treatment goals, and a plot of symptom scores, was associated with improved outcome and reduced dropout in naturalistic CBT provided to 845 patients in a private practice setting. We conducted regression analyses to test the hypotheses that the presence of each tool in the clinical record was associated with lower end-of-treatment scores on the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) and the Burns Anxiety Inventory (BurnsAI), and lower rates of premature and uncollaborative dropout. We found that the presence of a written case formulation in the clinical record was associated with lower rates of both types of dropout. A list of treatment goals was associated with lower end-of-treatment scores on the BDI and the BurnsAI, and a lower rate of uncollaborative but a higher rate of premature dropout. A plot of symptom scores was associated with lower end-of-treatment scores on the BDI, and lower rates of both types of dropout. Results suggest that therapist use of a written case formulation, list of treatment goals, and a plot of symptom scores can contribute to improved outcome and reduced dropout in CBT.

Ethical and Legal Guidance for Mental Health Practitioners Who Wish to Conduct Research in a Private Practice Setting.

Mental health practitioners, even when they have research training, rarely contribute to the scientific literature. One reason for this may be that they need help addressing the ethical and legal issues they encounter as they contemplate undertaking research in a clinical practice setting. To address that need, we offer several types of guidance for conducting research in a private practice setting in a way that meets high ethical and legal standards. We describe the situations in which ethical review of a research proposal by a federally registered institutional review board (IRB) is legally required, and identify alternate mechanisms that practitioners can use to obtain an ethical review when a formal IRB review is not required by law. We discuss legal and ethical requirements of conducting single-case studies in a practice setting. We provide a rationale, and free and inexpensive options, for obtaining a formal certificate of training in human subjects research. And we offer guidance for obtaining informed consent and Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) authorization from research participants. We conclude with a brief discussion of other legal and professional issues to consider when conducting research in private practice.

Mental health and clinical psychological science in the time of COVID-19: Challenges, opportunities, and a call to action.

COVID-19 presents significant social, economic, and medical challenges. Because COVID-19 has already begun to precipitate huge increases in mental health problems, clinical psychological science must assert a leadership role in guiding a national response to this secondary crisis. In this article, COVID-19 is conceptualized as a unique, compounding, multidimensional stressor that will create a vast need for intervention and necessitate new paradigms for mental health service delivery and training. Urgent challenge areas across developmental periods are discussed, followed by a review of psychological symptoms that likely will increase in prevalence and require innovative solutions in both science and practice. Implications for new research directions, clinical approaches, and policy issues are discussed to highlight the opportunities for clinical psychological science to emerge as an updated, contemporary field capable of addressing the burden of mental illness and distress in the wake of COVID-19 and beyond. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Congruence of Patient Takeaways and Homework Assignment Content Predicts Homework Compliance in Psychotherapy.

Homework is generally considered an essential part of psychotherapy. The present study tested the hypothesis that patients were more likely to complete homework assignments when the content of the assignments was more congruent with content the patient reported wanting to remember from the session (patient takeaways). The study relied on data collected in 541 sessions of individual naturalistic cognitive-behavioral therapy provided to 41 patients in a private practice setting and who completed a feedback form in each session that recorded the content of the homework assignments for the session, patient takeaways from the session, and homework completion. Congruence was determined by raters who evaluated the match between homework content and patient takeaways. Results of generalized linear mixed modeling showed, as predicted, that congruence between homework assignment content and takeaways was statistically significantly associated with homework compliance. This finding suggests that therapists may be able to improve homework compliance by soliciting feedback about what the client found important about the session and then assigning homework consistent with that information.

Symptom Severity at Week 4 of Cognitive-Behavior Therapy Predicts Depression Remission.

Early response has been shown to predict psychotherapy outcome. We examined the strength of the relationship between early response and remission in 82 patients who received naturalistic cognitive-behavior therapy in a private practice setting, and 158 patients who received protocol cognitive therapy in a research setting. We predicted that the relationship between early response and remission would be substantial enough to guide clinical decision making in both samples, and that a simple model of severity at Week 4 of treatment would predict remission as effectively as a more complex change score. Logistic regressions showed that a simple model based on the Week 4 Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) score was as predictive of remission as more complex models of early change. A receiver operating characteristics analysis showed that BDI score at Week 4 was substantially predictive of remission in both the naturalistic and research protocol samples; the area under the curve was .80 and .84 in the naturalistic and protocol samples, respectively. To guide clinical decision making, we identified threshold scores on the BDI corresponding to various negative predictive values (probability of nonremission when nonremission is predicted). Our results indicate that depressed patients who remain severely depressed at Week 4 of cognitive therapy are unlikely to reach remission at the end of relatively brief (maximum 20 sessions) treatment. We discuss implications of our findings for clinical decision making and treatment development.

The Relationship Between Dropout and Outcome in Naturalistic Cognitive Behavior Therapy.

Dropout from psychotherapy is frequent and limits the benefits patients can receive from treatment. The study of factors associated with dropout has the potential to yield strategies to reduce it. This study analyzed data from a large sample of adults (N = 1,092) receiving naturalistic cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) to test the hypotheses that dropouts, as compared to completers, had (1) higher symptom severity at treatment termination, (2) a slower rate of symptom change during treatment, and (3) a higher odds that the therapist rated treatment as ending for reasons related to poor outcome. Results showed that although dropouts ended treatment with higher symptom severity than completers, dropouts and completers did not differ in their rate of symptom change during treatment, suggesting that dropouts had higher symptom severity at termination because they received fewer sessions of treatment, not because their symptoms changed at a slower rate. Dropout was also associated with a higher odds of having a therapist-rated termination reason indicating a poor outcome, suggesting that dropout is more likely if patients are dissatisfied with some aspect of the therapy outcome or process. These findings suggest that strategies for monitoring and enhancing patient satisfaction with the process and outcome of treatment may help patients stay in treatment longer and end treatment with fewer symptoms than if they had dropped out.

Increasing psychotherapists' adoption and implementation of the evidence-based practice of progress monitoring.

Evidence-based practices (EBPs) reach consumers slowly because practitioners are slow to adopt and implement them. We hypothesized that giving psychotherapists a tool + training intervention that was designed to help the therapist integrate the EBP of progress monitoring into his or her usual way of working would be associated with adoption and sustained implementation of the particular progress monitoring tool we trained them to use (the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales on our Online Progress Tracking tool) and would generalize to all types of progress monitoring measures. To test these hypotheses, we developed an online progress monitoring tool and a course that trained psychotherapists to use it, and we assessed progress monitoring behavior in 26 psychotherapists before, during, immediately after, and 12 months after they received the tool and training. Immediately after receiving the tool + training intervention, participants showed statistically significant increases in use of the online tool and of all types of progress monitoring measures. Twelve months later, participants showed sustained use of any type of progress monitoring measure but not the online tool.

Changes in affect during treatment for depression and anxiety.

We tested the hypothesis that the tripartite model [Clark, L. A., & Watson, D. (1991). Tripartite model of anxiety and depression: Psychometric evidence and psychometric implications. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 100, 316-336] can be extended to account for change during treatment for anxiety and depression. Forty-one patients treated naturalistically in private practice with cognitive behavior therapy completed weekly measures of depression, anxiety, negative affect (NA), positive affect (PA), and anxious arousal (AA). Consistent with the model, NA was associated with anxiety and depression during treatment, PA was more strongly related to depression than to anxiety, and AA was more strongly related to anxiety than to depression. As predicted, symptoms of depression and anxiety and NA all decreased during treatment. As predicted, AA also decreased, particularly for patients with panic disorder. PA increased during treatment, but only for patients who showed a significant decline in depression and only over an extended period of treatment. Nearly two-thirds of the variance in anxiety change was accounted for by changes in depression and NA, and just over three-fourths of the variance in depression change was accounted for by changes in anxiety and NA, indicating that much of the change in anxiety and depression across the course of treatment is shared in common.

Naturalistic outcome of case formulation-driven cognitive-behavior therapy for anxious depressed outpatients.

This article describes a case formulation-driven approach to the treatment of anxious depressed outpatients and presents naturalistic outcome data evaluating its effectiveness. Fifty-eight patients who received case formulation-driven cognitive-behavior therapy (CBT) in a private practice setting were studied. All received individual CBT guided by a case formulation and weekly outcome monitoring; in addition, 40 patients received adjunct therapies, including pharmacotherapy, which were added as indicated by the case formulation and the results of weekly outcome monitoring. Patients treated with case formulation-driven CBT showed statistically and clinically significant changes in anxiety and depression that were generally comparable to those reported in published randomized controlled trials of empirically supported therapies (ESTs) for single mood and anxiety disorders. Findings support the proposal that anxious depressed patients who have multiple comorbidities and require multiple therapies can benefit from empirically supported treatments guided by a case formulation and weekly outcome monitoring.

Psychosocial intervention development for the prevention and treatment of depression: promoting innovation and increasing access.

Great strides have been made in developing psychosocial interventions for the treatment of depression and bipolar disorder over the last three decades, but more remains to be done. The National Institute of Mental Health Psychosocial Intervention Development Workgroup recommends three priorities for future innovation: 1) development of new and more effective interventions that address both symptom change and functional capacity, 2) development of interventions that prevent onset and recurrence of clinical episodes in at-risk populations, and 3) development of user-friendly interventions and nontraditional delivery methods to increase access to evidence-based interventions. In each of these areas, the Workgroup recommends systematic study of the mediating mechanisms that drive the process of change and the moderators that influence their effects. This information will highlight the elements of psychosocial interventions that most contribute to the prevention and treatment of mood disorders across diagnostic groups, populations served, and community settings. The process of developing innovative interventions should have as its goal a mental health service delivery system that prevents the onset and recurrence of the mood disorders, furnishes increasingly effective treatment for those who seek it, and provides access to evidence-based psychosocial interventions via all feasible means.