Page 5: Center for Psychotherapy Research

The Center for Psychotherapy Research consists of researchers from the Psychology Research Institute and the Department of Psychology at the Faculty of Social Studies, Masaryk University, Brno. It is dedicated to the implementation of research projects, as well as connecting the world of research and practice in the field of psychotherapy and counselling.

More about the Center

News

21 Mar 2024

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 2024

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 2024

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 2024

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.