Differentiation of self and relationship attachment, quality, and stability: A path analysis of dyadic and longitudinal data from Spanish and U.S. couples.

OBJECTIVES: In the current study, we examined the relationship between differentiation of self (DoS) and key relationship functioning variables among couples. This is the first study to test such relationships using a cross-cultural longitudinal approach (i.e., samples from Spain and the U.S.) while controlling for stressful life events-a key theoretical construct in Bowen Family Systems Theory. METHODS: A sample of 958 individuals (n = 137 couples from Spain, and n = 342 couples from U.S.) was used in cross sectional and longitudinal models to analyze the effects of a shared reality construct of DoS on anxious attachment, avoidant attachment, relationship stability, and relationship quality while considering gender and culture. RESULTS: Our cross-sectional results indicated that men and women from both cultures experienced an increase in DoS over time. DoS predicted increased relationship quality and stability and decreased anxious and avoidant attachment in U.S. participants. Longitudinally, DoS predicted increased relationship quality and decreased anxious attachment for Spanish women and men, while it predicted greater relationship quality and stability and decreased anxious and avoidant attachment of U.S. couples. Implications of these mixed findings are discussed. CONCLUSIONS: Higher levels of DoS are linked with a better couple relationship across time, despite varying levels of stressful life events. Although some cultural differences regarding the links between relationship stability and avoidant attachment exist, this positive link between differentiation and the couple relationship is mostly consistent across the U.S. and Spain. The implications and relevance for integration into research and practice are discussed.

Research in counselling and psychotherapy Post-COVID-19.

The COVID-19 pandemic brings to light many areas the field of counselling and psychotherapy may need to address in future research. We outline several issues stemming from or exacerbated by the pandemic and offer suggestions for future research to address the mental health needs of those impacted. Our suggestions focus on five domains: (a) the health and well-being of helping professionals, (b) the infodemic, (c) discrimination and minority stress, (d) spiritual and existential dynamics in mental health and (e) couple and family stress and resilience. We aim to provide a multi-systemic perspective of mental health and well-being in the time of COVID-19, as well as encourage current and future studies to incorporate these suggestions to advance the health and well-being of our communities through evidence-based treatment approaches.

Counselling and psychotherapy post-COVID-19.

We consider how the prolonged, complex and uncertain aftermath of the COVID-19 crisis will present challenges and opportunities for counselling and psychotherapy. Increased mental strain on populations, individuals and professionals is likely to be compounded by further constraints in therapeutic resources. Nevertheless, emerging needs and priorities will offer ground for systems thinking in linking the application of a range of therapeutic frameworks, theories to address global challenges, integration of counselling and psychotherapy into new sectors, service models for the most vulnerable, use of digital approaches, support mechanisms for professionals and interdisciplinary research.

Virtue, flourishing, and positive psychology in psychotherapy: An overview and research prospectus.

Researchers have increasingly called for the examination of both mental health symptoms and well-being when providing and evaluating psychotherapy, and although symptoms and well-being are typically inversely related, these appear to be distinct constructs that may require distinct intervention strategies. Positive psychology interventions, virtue-based treatments, and psychotherapies explicitly focused on promoting well-being have emerged in response to, or perhaps in concert with, the calls for attention to symptoms and well-being. Our review of the relevant and vast research pockets revealed that these treatments demonstrated relative efficacy in promoting well-being, whereas evidence for relative efficacy when reducing symptoms was largely inconclusive, particularly in psychotherapy contexts. We organized our review around the virtue-ethics notion that growth in virtuousness fosters flourishing, with flourishing consisting of more than the absence of symptoms, and specifically, that flourishing also involves increased well-being. The lack of evidence for relative efficacy among active alternative treatment conditions in promoting flourishing may suggest equal effectiveness, and yet, this also suggests that there are yet-to-be-identified moderators and mechanisms of change and/or insufficient use of research designs and/or statistical procedures that could more clearly test this major tenet of the virtue-ethics tradition. Nevertheless, we know that evidence-based problem-focused psychotherapies are effective at reducing symptoms, and our review showed that positive psychology interventions, virtue-based treatments, and psychotherapies explicitly focused on well-being promote well-being and/or virtue development. We encourage researchers and psychotherapists to continue to integrate symptom reduction and well-being promotion into psychotherapy approaches aimed at fostering client flourishing. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Latent trajectories of change for clients at a psychodynamic training clinic.

OBJECTIVE: Employing practice-based research methods, we addressed the need to examine the effectiveness of psychodynamic treatment as a supplement to the efficacy evidence offered by randomized clinical trials. METHOD: We used person-centered analyses to generate latent subgroups of clients (N = 118; M age = 40.92; 53.4% female; 81.4% Caucasian; 80.5% heterosexual) receiving contemporary relational psychotherapy (CRP) at a psychodynamic community mental health training clinic. RESULTS: Subgroups of clients reported a change in depression, social conflict, and anxiety symptomatology, and overall life satisfaction, depicted by significant quadratic growth curves. Findings also offered exploratory support for a theoretical proposition from CRP that improved relational functioning would correspond to improved affect dysregulation and overall life satisfaction. CONCLUSION: Clinical and training implications highlight the need to distinguish subgroups of "responders" and "nonresponders" to inform treatment.

Humility, Relational Spirituality, and Well-being among Religious Leaders: A Moderated Mediation Model.

Prior research has demonstrated positive associations between general humility and well-being, and posited a protective effect for intellectual humility against maladjustment among religious leaders. We tested a model that extended findings on general humility to include intellectual humility among religious leaders (N = 258; M age = 42.31; 43% female; 63.7% White; 91.9% Christian affiliation). We observed a positive general humility-well-being association. Contrary to expectations, we observed risk effects for religion-specific intellectual humility. Our findings also point to the possibility that these risk effects might be attenuated by the integration of high levels of general and intellectual humility.

Humility, Forgiveness, and Emerging Adult Female Romantic Relationships.

Among a sample of emerging adult females (N = 152) we empirically examined the role of humility and forgiveness in romantic relationships. We specifically tested a model linking perceived humility to relationship satisfaction with self-forgiveness and partner-forgiveness. Participants in a romantic relationship completed measures of self-reported humility, self-forgiveness, partner-forgiveness, and relationship satisfaction. Serial mediation analyses were conducted using path analysis to test the following sequence, humility self-forgiveness partner-forgiveness relationship satisfaction. Findings indicate that humility was related to relationship satisfaction via a serially mediated path of self-forgiveness and partner-forgiveness, which was not reducible to impression management. We consider implications for research and clinical practice.