Journal of Clinical Psychology
May 1, 2024
Timea Kehr, Suzanne Haeyen
Posttraumatic nightmares are common after trauma and often affect people with borderline personality disorder. Imagery rehearsal therapy is the best-supported treatment for these nightmares, but many patients drop out. Adding art therapy may help by offering an indirect, nonverbal, and playful way to work through avoidance. This case study describes Aurelia, a 40-year-old woman with BPD who participated in an art-therapy-based imagery rehearsal treatment for posttraumatic nightmares. She processed childhood physical and sexual violence as well as current interactional problems appearing in her nightmares. After treatment, Aurelia reported fewer nightmares, less fear of them, and greater calm toward her trauma. Expressing herself through art increased her self-efficacy, and she experienced trauma integration and a perceived decrease in borderline symptoms.
Journal of Clinical Psychology
November 1, 2023
Emina Prguda, Justine Evans, Sarah McLeay et al.
Australian veterans with PTSD, insomnia, and nightmares received either eight sessions of cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) alone or CBT-I combined with imagery rehearsal therapy (IRT). Both groups improved on self-reported sleep, nightmare, and psychological measures from baseline to three months after treatment, but there was no evidence that the combined treatment was superior to CBT-I alone. Obstructive sleep apnea risk did not moderate the outcomes. Despite improvements, average scores on sleep measures still indicated poor sleep quality. The findings suggest that both treatments could be optimized for this population.
Journal of Clinical Psychology
January 15, 2022
Eric D. Tifft, Shannon B. Underwood, Max Z. Roberts et al.
Many people meditate to manage or control unpleasant thoughts and emotions, but this approach may backfire. In a survey of 98 undergraduate meditators, 58.2% reported using meditation to control or avoid difficult experiences. Those with control-based intentions reported higher worry, anxiety, depression, and negative affect, and lower mindfulness, compared with those who meditated with an accepting or open attitude. The more participants viewed anxiety or stress as a problem, the more likely they were to use meditation for control. The findings suggest that the intention behind meditation—control versus acceptance—is linked to psychological distress.
Journal of Clinical Psychology
January 24, 2020
J. R. Yela, A. Crego, M. Gómez-Martínez et al.
Meditation is positively associated with better mental health, and the regularity of practice matters. Self-compassion, a sense of meaning in life, and reduced experiential avoidance appear to be active components that help explain how meditation improves mental health. These three factors together accounted for 58% of the variance in mental health scores among meditators and nonmeditators.
Journal of Clinical Psychology
September 1, 2018
Barbara L Niles, DeAnna L Mori, Craig Polizzi et al.
A systematic review of 22 randomized controlled trials found that mindfulness and yoga treatments for PTSD produced moderate to large effect size advantages over control conditions. Relaxation was used as a control in all seven relaxation trials, yet five of those trials reported significant between-group differences favoring the target treatments, and most showed large within-group symptom improvements in the relaxation condition. The authors conclude that results for mindfulness, yoga, and relaxation are promising, though many studies have methodological weaknesses. Recommendations for future mind-body trial designs are offered.
Journal of Clinical Psychology
August 16, 2017
M. Gawrysiak, S. Grassetti, Jeffrey M Greeson et al.
People with lower levels of acceptance and decentering at the start of a Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program showed greater decreases in perceived stress afterward. However, higher baseline awareness, acceptance, and decentering predicted larger increases in positive affect, while higher awareness predicted greater reductions in negative affect, and lower decentering also predicted greater reductions in negative affect. The findings partly support the idea that lower initial mindfulness allows more room for improvement, but they also highlight that different facets of mindfulness relate to outcomes in unique and sometimes opposite ways.
Journal of Clinical Psychology
January 1, 2017
Annette van Schagen, Jaap Lancee, Marijke Swart et al.
Among 498 patients with diverse moderate-to-severe psychiatric disorders, those who also had nightmare disorder showed higher levels of psychopathology and personality pathology than those without nightmare disorder, with small effect sizes. No significant differences were found in coping strategies between the two groups. The findings suggest that nightmare disorder is linked to greater symptom severity in psychiatric patients.
Journal of Clinical Psychology
January 21, 2016
H. Wahbeh, Elena Goodrich, Elizabeth R. Goy et al.
Combat veterans with PTSD who practiced mindfulness meditation or slow breathing showed modest improvements in their PTSD symptoms, but the improvements were similar across all groups, including those who just sat quietly. The perceived impression of symptom improvement was greater in the meditation groups than in the control group. Physiological measures such as heart rate, heart rate variability, and attention task performance did not change significantly, while self-reported hyperarousal and intrusive thoughts improved in some groups. The findings suggest that the benefits of these practices are mostly subjective rather than reflected in physiological markers.
Journal of Clinical Psychology
August 1, 2013
Debra Rosenzweig
Forgiveness, gratitude, loving-kindness, compassion, acceptance, and best-self visualization are interconnected forms of mindfulness rooted in Buddhist psychology. These practices represent mental strengths that are being integrated into the brain's neuroplastic development through modern psychotherapy.
Journal of Clinical Psychology
July 1, 2012
Ruth A. Baer, James Carmody, Matthew Hunsinger
In an 8-week mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) course for 87 adults with stress from chronic illness, pain, or other life circumstances, mindfulness skills increased significantly by the second week, while perceived stress did not improve significantly until the fourth week. The degree of improvement in mindfulness during the first three weeks predicted later reductions in stress. These results suggest that changes in mindfulness precede and may help explain the stress-reducing effects of MBSR training.
Journal of Clinical Psychology
December 1, 2010
Brian A Sharpless, Kevin S. McCarthy, Dianne L. Chambless et al.
Among 133 patients seeking treatment for panic disorder, 29.3% had experienced isolated sleep paralysis (ISP) at some point in their lives, 20.3% met criteria for fearful ISP (FISP), and 12.8% had recurrent FISP. Both ISP and FISP were more common among minority patients and those with comorbid conditions. Only FISP was linked to posttraumatic stress disorder, higher body mass, anxiety sensitivity, and greater mood and anxiety disorder symptoms. A new semistructured interview, the Fearful Isolated Sleep Paralysis Interview, was developed to assess these episodes reliably.
Journal of Clinical Psychology
February 1, 2009
Edward P Shafranske
Spiritually oriented psychodynamic psychotherapy focuses on how religious and spiritual beliefs, practices, and experiences affect a client's psychological life. Contemporary psychoanalytic theory offers multiple ways to understand the functions of religious experience. Spirituality helps address existential concerns and create personal meaning, while religious narratives provide relationship schemas and models of experiences like hope that are relevant to mental health. God images or other symbolic representations of the transcendent can evoke emotions that influence motivation and behavior. This approach uses psychodynamic techniques to analyze the functions of religion and spirituality while respecting the client's faith, exploring the psychological meaning of personal commitments without debating faith claims.
Journal of Clinical Psychology
May 1, 1999
S Sanderson, B Vandenberg, P Paese
Mental health professionals judge the religious authenticity and mental health of religiously motivated behaviors based on how conventional those behaviors are, not on the specific dimensions of religious experience. The more a behavior deviates from conventional religious beliefs and practices, the less authentic and mentally healthy it is considered. This finding suggests that clinicians may conflate religious unconventionality with psychopathology.
Journal of Clinical Psychology
September 1, 1990
S R Wilson, R C Spencer
Positive and negative intense experiences share similar subjective effects and lasting impact, differing mainly in emotional tone. Most people's most positive experiences do not reach the level of a true peak experience as Maslow described, whereas members of a yoga ashram reported experiences that more often involved altered consciousness and lasting life change. The findings suggest that therapeutic change or self-actualization is rarely initiated by peak experiences alone.
Journal of Clinical Psychology
November 1, 1983
W C Compton, G M Becker
Inconsistencies in prior research on Zen meditation and self-actualization may stem from a learning period required before benefits appear. A study compared 36 Soto Zen students with 34 undergraduates who had never meditated, using the Personal Orientation Inventory. After adjusting for age, education, and sex, results showed that increases in self-actualization, as measured by the Inner Directed scale, occurred only after the learning period. Partial support was found for the Time Competent scale. The findings suggest a learning period for Zen meditation is necessary for observable effects on self-actualization.
Journal of Clinical Psychology
October 1, 1977
D J Woods, S Ceol, G Ferrandez
A 4-day dream recall study with 38 undergraduates found no significant correlations between three dimensions of emotional style, measured by the forced-choice Test of Emotional Styles, and any aspect of dream reports. The emotional style dimensions did correlate significantly with each other, raising questions about the construct validity of the test's subscales.
Journal of Clinical Psychology
July 1, 1977
D Avila, R Nummela
Transcendental Meditation may be useful in helping relationships, but its acceptance could grow if explained in psychological rather than purely philosophical or mystical terms. The authors provide a psychological interpretation of the TM process to make it more accessible.
Journal of Clinical Psychology
October 1, 1976
G D Grâce
Practicing Zen meditation for five months was linked to increases on the Dominance (Do) and Capacity for Status (Cs) scales of the California Psychological Inventory compared to a control group that did not meditate. The two groups were equivalent before the experiment began. The findings suggest that Zen meditation may influence certain personality traits, specifically those related to social poise and leadership.