The impact of integrating emotion focused components into psychological therapy: A randomized controlled trial.

OBJECTIVES: This paper presents a randomized controlled trial on assimilative integration, which is aimed at integrating elements from other orientations within one approach to enrich its conceptual and practical repertoire. Elements from Emotion-Focused Therapy (EFT) were integrated into a form of cognitive behavior therapy: Psychological Therapy (PT). In one treatment condition, EFT was added to PT (+EFT) with the intent to enhance therapists' working with emotions. In the other condition, concepts and interventions based on the socialpsychological self-regulation approach were added to PT (+SR). Our assumption was that the +EFT would lead to greater and deeper change, particularly in the follow-up assessments. METHOD: Patients (n = 104) with anxiety, depression, or adjustment disorders were randomized to the two conditions and treated by 38 therapists who self-selected between the conditions. Primary outcome was symptom severity at 12-month follow-up; secondary outcomes included several measures such as interpersonal problems and quality of life. Variables were assessed at baseline, after 8 and 16 sessions, at posttreatment, and at 6- and 12-month follow-up. RESULTS: Contrary to our hypothesis, no significant between-group effects were found. CONCLUSION: The findings first suggest the difficulty of topping an already very effective approach to psychotherapy. Alternative interpretations were that the EFT training, while corresponding to regular practice in AI, was not sufficient to make a difference in outcome, or that while profiting from the enhancement of abilities for working with emotions, this was outbalanced by negative effects of difficulties related to the implementation of the new elements.

Psychotherapy integration under scrutiny: investigating the impact of integrating emotion-focused components into a CBT-based approach: a study protocol of a randomized controlled trial.

BACKGROUND: This currently recruiting randomized controlled trial investigates the effects of integrating components of Emotion-Focused Therapy (EFT) into Psychological Therapy (PT), an integrative form of cognitive-behavioral therapy in a manner that is directly mirroring common integrative practice in the sense of assimilative integration. Aims of the study are to understand how both, an existing therapy approach as well as the elements to be integrated, are affected by the integration and to clarify the role of emotional processing as a mediator of therapy outcome. METHODS: A total of 130 adults with a diagnosed unipolar depressive, anxiety or adjustment disorder (seeking treatment at a psychotherapy outpatient clinic) are randomized to either treatment as usual (PT) with integrated emotion-focused components (TAU + EFT) or PT (TAU). Primary outcome variables are psychopathology and symptom severity at the end of therapy and at follow up; secondary outcome variables are interpersonal problems, psychological wellbeing, quality of life, attainment of individual therapy goals, and emotional competency. Furthermore, process variables such as the quality of the therapeutic relationship are studied as well as aptitude-treatment interactions. Variables are assessed at baseline, after 8 and 16 sessions, at the end of therapy, after 25 ± 3 sessions, and at 6, 12 and 36 month follow-up. Underlying mechanisms of change are investigated. Statistical analyses will be conducted using the appropriate multilevel approaches, mainly two-level regression and growth analysis. DISCUSSION: The results of this study will indicate whether the integration of emotion-focused elements into treatment as usual increases the effectiveness of Psychological Therapy. If advantages are found, which may be limited to particular variables or subgroups of patients, recommendations for a systematic integration, and caveats if also disadvantages are detected, can be formulated. On a more abstract level, a cognitive behavioral (represented by PT) and humanistic/experiential (represented by EFT) approach will be integrated. It must be emphasized that mimicking common practice in the development and continued education of psychotherapists, EFT is not integrated as a whole, but only elements of EFT that are considered particularly important, and can be trained in an 8-day training plus supervision of therapies. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT02822443 , 22 June 2016, retrospectively registered.