CONTEMPORARY FAMILY THERAPY最新文献

Providing therapy services via Telemental Health (TMH), or teletherapy, has exponentially increased since the COVID-19 pandemic. Although previous research demonstrates that TMH is as effective as in-person therapy, there is a dearth of research on how therapists should address technology-perpetrated abuse and intimate partner violence (IPV) over TMH. This is extremely problematic given the frequency in which violence occurs in romantic relationships. This manuscript aims to address this gap by providing concrete clinical guidelines based on existing literature and professional experience with engaging in TMH services. The authors review literature on technology-perpetrated abuse and discuss innovative ways to assess and treat IPV over TMH by adapting protocols from Domestic Violence-Focused Couple's Therapy. Within this, the authors integrate research on high-conflict couples to provide new suggestions on how to manage couples who escalate quickly and who are prone to violence. The manuscript will conclude with future directions for research.

Attrition in psychotherapy has been identified as a significant obstacle in the productive delivery of mental health services. Defined generally as the ending of a treatment prior to proper optimal benefit, attrition both hinders treatment efficacy and costeffectiveness in therapy. With the demands for quality mental health services increasing, resources must be identified to reduce barriers to such services. The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in the emergence of one potential resources: telehealth services. The current study aims to identify how COVID-19 and telehealth services have influenced attrition by analyzing attrition rates from both before and during the pandemic in a community health center where a transition to telehealth was made at the start of the pandemic. In addition, the variables of age, gender, socioeconomic status, and insurance coverage were also tested as potential predictors of attrition. Using de-identified patient information, clients who had participated in therapy services within a six-month period at a community health center (N = 329) were selected. A survival analysis was used to assess the time taken from initial appointment to the point of attrition. Results indicated that those who attended therapy via telehealth were less likely to stop attending treatment than those who participated in therapy in person. Individuals who used both in-person and telehealth visits were the least likely to terminate treatment prematurely. Clinical implications include the need for therapists to offer both telehealth and in-person services in order to give clients more resources to reduce a large barrier to needed mental healthcare treatment.

Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10591-023-09661-0.

The current study addressed the role that perfectionism plays among professionals in this field of marriage and family therapy (MFT). Specifically, this study provides information about PS (personal standards) perfectionism and EC (evaluative concerns) and their relationship with both compassion satisfaction and compassion fatigue. The sample included 247 marriage and family therapists who answered demographic questions along with completing the professional quality of life scale (ProQOL; as reported by Stamm, B. H. (2009). Professional Quality of Life: Compassion Satisfaction and Fatigue Version 5 (ProQOL). Retrieved from http://www.proqol.org/ProQol_Test.html; Stamm in The concise ProQOL manual, ProQOL.org, 2010;) and the multidimensional perfectionism scale (MPS; Hewitt and Flett, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 60:456-470, 1991). Results indicated three significant findings: (1) higher levels of both self-oriented and socially oriented perfectionism are correlated with higher levels of both burnout and secondary traumatic stress; (2) as years of work as an MFT increase, level of burnout decreases; and (3) women demonstrated statistically significantly higher scores in PS perfectionism than men. Limitations, implications, and future directions are discussed.

Moving in together is an important transition in a relationship. For many, it is often a shift to the next phase of the relationship indicating higher levels of commitment. Whether the partners are married, plans to get married, or marriage is not part of their future, there are important conversations to be had prior to this transition. As such, this article presents recommended pre-cohabitation conversations with question prompts for partners to explore prior to moving in together. To best understand the dynamics of cohabiting that informed the questions, a review of the literature on cohabitation is presented. Additionally, race and culture, religion, and sexual and gender identity will be highlighted as essential conversation considerations especially as the majority of the literature is centered around white, hetero, and monogamous relationships. Created by a group of couple and family therapy graduate trainees based on the literature and their own personal and professional experiences, the pre-cohabitation conversations are organized into three categories- relationship negotiations, household rules, and communication. These conversations are recommended to be used both by therapists with their clients as well as for direct use by partners following the questions presented within. The topics represent a comprehensive range of relationship issues including consideration of unique issues as presented in the literature with the goal of aiding partners in successful management of their transition to a shared living space.

One of the innumerable impacts of the coronavirus has been the change in how individuals provide services. For mental health providers, the pandemic required a sudden shift from in person to online service delivery. As therapists learn and embrace a new modality for providing therapy, crisis situations may present with some anxiety. With the pandemic increasing crisis situations for so many individuals, and teletherapy as a mode of service delivery being unlikely to go away after the pandemic, therapists require support in navigating crises situations online, in a medium that feels like the therapist has less control with their clients due to being in different physical locations. The authors believe that regardless of the primary model(s) therapists utilize in session, solution-focused brief therapy is an integrative model that uniquely captures client's resources and reasons for living and when clients are in crisis. The purpose of this paper is to present recommendations for applying solution-focused language in teletherapy practice, to provide ethical, evidenced based care for clients in crisis. A clinical vignette is used to illustrate the application of solution focused brief therapy for working with clients in crisis. Future directions and limitations are discussed.