Older adults' preferences for religion/spirituality in treatment for anxiety and depression.

OBJECTIVES: To examine patient preferences for incorporating religion and/or spirituality into therapy for anxiety or depression and examine the relations between patient preferences and religious and spiritual coping styles, beliefs and behaviors. METHOD: Participants (66 adults, 55 years or older, from earlier studies of cognitive-behavioral therapy for late-life anxiety and/or depression in primary care) completed these measures by telephone or in-person: Geriatric Anxiety Inventory, Client Attitudes Toward Spirituality in Therapy, Patient Interview, Brief Religious Coping, Religious Problem Solving Scale, Santa Clara Strength of Religious Faith, and Brief Multidimensional Measure of Religiousness and Spirituality. Spearman's rank-order correlations and ordinal logistic regression examined religious/spiritual variables as predictors of preferences for inclusion of religion or spirituality into counseling. RESULTS: Most participants (77-83%) preferred including religion and/or spirituality in therapy for anxiety and depression. Participants who thought it was important to include religion or spirituality in therapy reported more positive religious-based coping, greater strength of religious faith, and greater collaborative and less self-directed problem-solving styles than participants who did not think it was important. CONCLUSION: For individuals like most participants in this study (Christians), incorporating spirituality/religion into counseling for anxiety and depression was desirable.

Self-blame, self-forgiveness, and spirituality in breast cancer survivors in a public sector setting.

Cognitive appraisal affects adjustment to breast cancer. A self-forgiving attitude and spirituality may benefit breast cancer survivors who blame themselves for their cancer. One hundred and eight women with early breast cancers completed questionnaires assessing self-blame, self-forgiveness, spirituality, mood and quality of life (QoL) in an outpatient breast clinic. Women who blamed themselves reported more mood disturbance (p < 0.01) and poorer QoL (p < 0.01). Women who were more self-forgiving and more spiritual reported less mood disturbance and better QoL (p's < 0.01). Interventions that reduce self-blame and facilitate self-forgiveness and spirituality could promote better adjustment to breast cancer.

Integrative multidisciplinary treatment in the public sector: a pilot study.

Integrative Multidisciplinary Treatment (IMT) emphasizes factors common to evidence-based treatments for borderline personality disorder (BPD) and is suitable for implementation in a public sector setting staffed by clinicians with diverse theoretical backgrounds. Preliminary results suggested decreases in psychiatric disturbance, depression, suicidality, hospitalizations, and emergency room visits, and increases in quality of relationships and quality of life. Results generalized across patients with and without BPD, with two exceptions: hospitalizations and suicidality.