Growth in challenging situations: A qualitative investigation of therapists' experience of delivering emotion-focused therapy.

Psychotherapy does not work equally well for all clients. For research to support clinicians in helping more clients, we need to better understand the process of when therapy become particularly challenging. In this study, we investigated challenging change processes from the therapists' perspective when applying Emotion-Focused Therapy (EFT).

Stretching oneself too thin and facing ethical challenges: Healthcare professionals' experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Backgrounds: Most countries are facing increased pressure on healthcare resources. A better understanding of how healthcare providers respond to new demands is relevant for future pandemics and other crises.

Objectives: This study aimed to explore what nurses and doctors in Norway reported as their main ethical challenges during two periods of the COVID-19 pandemic: February 2021 and February 2022.

Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy improves insomnia symptoms in individuals with recurrent depression: secondary analyses from a randomized controlled trial.

Background: Embedded within a randomized efficacy trial, the present study aimed to investigate whether mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) for recurrent depression improved symptoms of insomnia.

Methods: Sixty-eight remitted participants with at least three prior episodes of depression were randomized to 8 weeks of MBCT ( = 33) or a waitlist control condition ( = 35). The Bergen Insomnia Scale was used to screen for insomnia symptoms before and after the intervention.

From seeing difficult behaviour to recognizing legitimate needs - A qualitative study of mothers' experiences of participating in a Circle of Security Parenting program in a public mental health setting.

Objective: Mental health challenges can interfere with caregivers' self-efficacy and their ability to engage with their children in developmentally appropriate ways. The goal of this study was to explore whether the intervention Circle of Security Parenting (COS-P) was experienced as a meaningful adjunct to psychological treatment.

Method: Individual qualitative semi-structured interviews were conducted with twelve female COS-P participants, exploring how taking part in COS-P had changed the way they related to themselves and others.

Ethical dilemmas for nursing home doctors during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Background: Nursing home residents were particularly vulnerable to a serious clinical course of COVID-19. It was therefore decided early in the pandemic that nursing homes needed to be protected through measures such as testing and isolation regimens and restrictions on visiting. This entailed new procedures and guidelines for nursing home doctors.

Self-Compassion and Its Association With Ruminative Tendencies and Vagally Mediated Heart Rate Variability in Recurrent Major Depression.

Background: Recurrent Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) is one of the most disabling mental disorders in modern society. Prior research has shown that self-compassion protects against ruminative tendencies, a key feature of recurrent MDD. In addition, self-compassion has been found to be positively related to higher psychophysiological flexibility (indexed by a higher vagally mediated heart rate variability; vmHRV) in young, healthy adults.

Priority-setting dilemmas, moral distress and support experienced by nurses and physicians in the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic in Norway.

Background: The global COVID-19 pandemic has imposed challenges on healthcare systems and professionals worldwide and introduced a ´maelstrom´ of ethical dilemmas. How ethically demanding situations are handled affects employees' moral stress and job satisfaction.

Aim: Describe priority-setting dilemmas, moral distress and support experienced by nurses and physicians across medical specialties in the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic in Western Norway.

Participant experiences of change in mindfulness-based stress reduction for anxiety disorders.

Aim: To explore experiences of change among participants in a randomized clinical trial of mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) for anxiety disorders.

Method: Semi-structured interviews were conducted to explore the subjective experiences of change for individuals with anxiety disorders after a course in MBSR. Interviews were analysed employing hermeneutic-phenomenological thematic analysis.

The effects of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy on risk and protective factors of depressive relapse - a randomized wait-list controlled trial.

Background: The aim of this randomized wait-list controlled trial was to explore the effects of Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) on risk and protective factors for depressive relapse within the domains of cognition, emotion and self-relatedness.

Methods: Sixty-eight individuals with recurrent depressive disorder were randomized to MBCT or a wait-list control condition (WLC).

Results: Completers of MBCT (N = 26) improved significantly on measures assessing risk and protective factors of recurrent depression compared to WLC (N = 30) on measures of rumination (d = 0.

Is Dispositional Self-Compassion Associated With Psychophysiological Flexibility Beyond Mindfulness? An Exploratory Pilot Study.

Background: Dispositional mindfulness and self-compassion are shown to associate with less self-reported emotional distress. However, previous studies have indicated that dispositional self-compassion may be an even more important buffer against such distress than dispositional mindfulness. To our knowledge, no study has yet disentangled the relationship between dispositional self-compassion and mindfulness and level of psychophysiological flexibility as measured with vagally mediated heart rate variability (vmHRV).

The Association Between Juvenile Onset of Depression and Emotion Regulation Difficulties.

Juvenile onset of Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) is associated with increased likelihood of recurrent episodes of depression and more detrimental clinical trajectories. The aim of the current study was to investigate the effect of juvenile onset of MDD on emotion regulation as measured by self-report and Heart Rate Variability (HRV). Furthermore, we wanted to assess whether juvenile onset impacted the association between rumination and depressive symptoms.

"You Feel They Have a Heart and Are Not Afraid to Show It": Exploring How Clients Experience the Therapeutic Relationship in Emotion-Focused Therapy.

The therapeutic relationship is regarded as an important source of change in emotion-focused therapy (EFT) (Greenberg, 2014; Watson, 2018), but few qualitative studies have specifically investigated how clients experience the role of the relationship in EFT. The purpose of the present study was to explore what clients experienced as helpful or hindering aspects of the therapeutic relationship when undergoing EFT for depression, anxiety, and severe self-criticism. We interviewed 18 clients after a clinical trial of time-limited EFT, to explore their experiences of the relationship with their therapist during treatment.

Dispositional Mindfulness and Attentional Control: The Specific Association Between the Mindfulness Facets of Non-judgment and Describing With Flexibility of Early Operating Orienting in Conflict Detection.

A state of mindfulness refers to a present-centered attentional awareness without judging. Being mindful seems to increase the ability to be flexible and adaptive in attention focus according to situational contingencies. The way mindfulness affects such attentional control is often measured with three different but interacting attentional networks of alerting (preparedness), orienting (selection of stimulus), and conflict detection (suppression of irrelevant stimuli).

Emotion Regulation in Current and Remitted Depression: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.

Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) is a highly prevalent, recurrent, and potentially chronic disorder. Identifying risk factors and underlying mechanisms to inform preventive and therapeutic interventions is therefore imperative. Emotion regulation is a proposed factor in the development and maintenance of MDD.

Does an emotion-focused two-chair dialogue add to the therapeutic effect of the empathic attunement to affect?

An increasing amount of research suggests that it is beneficial to work explicitly with emotions in psychotherapy. Emotion-focused therapy (EFT) utilizes interventions that are thought to enhance the evocativeness of emotional processing and facilitate explorations of new meaning. The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of such an intervention on therapeutic outcome.

The Association between Self-Reported Difficulties in Emotion Regulation and Heart Rate Variability: The Salient Role of Not Accepting Negative Emotions.

Difficulties in emotion regulation are associated with development and maintenance of psychopathology. Typically, features of emotion regulation are assessed with self-report questionnaires. Heart rate variability (HRV) is an objective measure proposed as an index of emotional regulation capacity.

An open trial of mindfulness-based stress reduction for young adults with social anxiety disorder.

The present study investigated mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) for young adults with a social anxiety disorder (SAD) in an open trial. Fifty-three young adults in a higher education setting underwent a standard eight-week MBSR program. Eight participants (15%) did not complete the program.

Trait Self-Compassion Reflects Emotional Flexibility Through an Association with High Vagally Mediated Heart Rate Variability.

Converging evidence shows a positive effect of self-compassion on self-reported well-being and mental health. However, few studies have examined the relation between self-compassion and psychophysiological measures. In the present study, we therefore examined the relation between trait self-compassion and vagally mediated heart rate variability (vmHRV) in 53 students (39 female, mean age = 23.

Both sides of the story: Exploring how improved and less-improved participants experience mindfulness-based stress reduction for social anxiety disorder.

Objective: What works for whom in mindfulness-based group interventions for social anxiety disorder (SAD)? The present article compared the experiences of 14 participants in a clinical study of mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) for young adults with SAD.

Methods: A two-staged mixed methods design was used to identify the participants who reported the highest (n = 7) and lowest (n = 7) levels of symptomatic change on outcome measures after treatment, and analyze qualitative in-depth interviews to explore what they experienced as helpful and unhelpful during the MBSR program. The qualitative interviews were analyzed using a thematic analysis methodology.

What Brings You Here? Exploring Why Young Adults Seek Help for Social Anxiety.

Social anxiety disorder typically manifests in young adulthood, but there is an absence of qualitative research on the actual experiences of young adults suffering with this disorder. The aim of the present study was to investigate the lived experiences of 29 Norwegian university students who were seeking professional help for symptoms of social anxiety. We conducted in-depth interviews prior to a clinical trial.

The transdiagnostic phenomenon of self-criticism.

Three interventions used to assist highly self-critical patients develop self-compassion are described and illustrated with case material. Theoretical background, assumed mechanism of change, and research evidence for each intervention is presented.

The relationship between activating affects, inhibitory affects, and self-compassion in patients with Cluster C personality disorders.

In the short-term dynamic psychotherapy model termed "Affect Phobia Treatment," it is assumed that increase in patients' defense recognition, decrease in inhibitory affects (e.g., anxiety, shame, guilt), and increase in the experience of activating affects (e.