10 Jun

What do clients take away from sessions?

We discovered that in the initial phase of treatment (the first 5 sessions) two session reactions play a central role, namely (1) new discoveries related to the self and (2) finding a distance from one’s experiencing. These two reactions preceded other desirable reactions such as a sense of relief, perception of the therapeutic bond, and new discoveries about others. Clearly, a positive spiral of the treatment process seems to unfold if the client finds the treatment personally meaningful and can maintain a certain “distance” from the overwhelming experience of their life situation. Find more in our recent article.

31 May

Psychotherapy integration

We contributed to a chapter entitled "Psychotherapy integration: history, current status, and future directions" published in the new APA Handbook of Psychotherapy. The chapter summarizes the history and current directions in psychotherapy integration. It also summarizes research findings and training approaches in the field of psychotherapy integration. Efforts to integrate different psychotherapeutic approaches have accompanied the entire development of psychotherapy as a field. They can be thus considered a counterpoint to the constant differentiation and development of new psychotherapeutic methods.

22 Mar

What is the purpose of therapists monitoring the process and results of therapy?

We have found that the benefits of using routine outcome monitoring (ROM) systems are manifold. Our meta-analysis of 47 qualitative studies from around the world revealed that they are not only useful for obtaining clinically relevant information about the client. They also help in planning and structuring therapy, facilitate dialogue between the therapist and the client, and help improve the therapeutic relationship. Therapists also reported benefits for the clients themselves: monitoring made it easier for clients to gain insight into their difficulties or served as "confirmation" of perceived change. However, the possibility to adapt the work with the monitoring system to the needs and preferences of the client and the therapist was also an important aspect of using ROM.

21 Mar

Session Reactions Scale-3

We have published an article detailing the development of the Session Reactions Scale-3 (SRS-3), which is also used within DeePsy. The scale is constructed so that each item captures a specific client reaction (or session impact). The reactions themselves were identified from a number of qualitative studies in which clients described in their own words what made the session significant to them. We first developed the scale in English in collaboration with world-leading experts, and then translated it into Czech. It is available in the Resources section.

7 Mar

Clients' negative experiences in psychotherapy (a qualitative meta-analysis)

The qualitative meta-analysis of clients' negative experiences in psychotherapy by Vybíral et al. has already reached more than 10,000 views. It has become the most viewed Psychotherapy Research article in the last year. The authors found 21 categories of negative experiences, which related to (i) therapist professional misconduct, (ii) hindering aspects of the therapeutic relationship, (iii) poor treatment fit, and (iv) negative impacts of treatment. Of course, all of these client complaints cannot automatically be attributed to poorly conducted psychotherapy. Nevertheless, this study opens a valuable 'window' on how therapy may be experienced by clients themselves and why therapeutic efforts sometimes fail.

16 Feb

We host the Society for Psychotherapy Research (EU and UK chapters) conference

The Centre for Psychotherapy Research is involved in the organisation of the Society for Psychotherapy Research (EU & UK chapters) meeting that will be held at the Faculty of Social Studies of the Masaryk University in Brno in 2024. As usual, this conference will host researchers not only from Europe but also from overseas. Submission portal will be open until the end of April, 2024.

12 Feb

Risks and Side-Effects in Systemic Family Therapy

Together with our colleague Matthias Ochs, we published a chapter on the risks and side effects of systemic therapy. The chapter includes a qualitative study based on the Master's thesis of Jakub Caha, M.A., who investigated how systemic therapists themselves reflect on these phenomena. The results show how challenging it can be for psychotherapists to reflect on the potential threats and risks of their work with clients.

7 Feb

We presented at the conference New Horizons of Qualitative Research

We presented the findings of our recent qualitative meta-analysis at the New Horizons of Qualitative Research conference. We examined how psychotherapists in approximately 50 qualitative studies perceived routine process and outcome monitoring in psychotherapy. The findings are encouraging - routine monitoring has the potential to provide important cues in many areas, such as client improvement and deterioration during therapy, clients' satisfaction with the therapeutic process, and clients' preferences about how the treatment should proceed.