Trainee psychotherapists' emotion recognition accuracy during 1.5 years of psychotherapy education compared to a control group: no improvement after psychotherapy training.

The ability to recognize and work with patients' emotions is considered an important part of most psychotherapy approaches. Surprisingly, there is little systematic research on psychotherapists' ability to recognize other people's emotional expressions. In this study, we compared trainee psychotherapists' nonverbal emotion recognition accuracy to a control group of undergraduate students at two time points: at the beginning and at the end of one and a half years of theoretical and practical psychotherapy training.

Trainee psychotherapists' emotion recognition accuracy improves after training: emotion recognition training as a tool for psychotherapy education.

Introduction: Psychotherapists' emotional and empathic competencies have a positive influence on psychotherapy outcome and alliance. However, it is doubtful whether psychotherapy education in itself leads to improvements in trainee psychotherapists' emotion recognition accuracy (ERA), which is an essential part of these competencies.

Methods: In a randomized, controlled, double-blind study ( = 68), we trained trainee psychotherapists (57% psychodynamic therapy and 43% cognitive behavioral therapy) to detect non-verbal emotional expressions in others using standardized computerized trainings - one for multimodal emotion recognition accuracy and one for micro expression recognition accuracy - and compared their results to an active control group one week after the training ( = 60) and at the one-year follow up ( = 55).

Learning Processes and Acquisition of Knowledge and Skills in Training and Supervision of Psychotherapy and Counselling: A Study Protocol for a Scoping Review.

Increased awareness of the individual therapist's vital contribution to treatment processes and outcome, and the potential role of training and supervision in this respect, warrants a close look at the empirical and theoretical literature on teaching and learning of therapists and counselors. A scoping review of the literature will be conducted based on an overarching research question: when authors have reported on learning processes and acquisition of knowledge and skills in psychotherapy/counseling and supervision/training literature over the past 30 years (since 1990), what evidence, concepts, theories, and models have they reported? A comprehensive search strategy is carried out to identify publications indexed in Scopus, PsycINFO, and Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials. Publications will be sorted according to four categories: (1) conceptual/theoretical; (2) empirical (quantitative, qualitative, mixed methods); (3) review, meta-synthesis or -analysis; (4) training program/model description.

Training Emotion Recognition Accuracy: Results for Multimodal Expressions and Facial Micro Expressions.

Nonverbal emotion recognition accuracy (ERA) is a central feature of successful communication and interaction, and is of importance for many professions. We developed and evaluated two ERA training programs-one focusing on dynamic multimodal expressions (audio, video, audio-video) and one focusing on facial micro expressions. Sixty-seven subjects were randomized to one of two experimental groups (multimodal, micro expression) or an active control group (emotional working memory task).

Viewing Pictures Triggers Rapid Morphological Enlargement in the Human Visual Cortex.

Measuring brain morphology with non-invasive structural magnetic resonance imaging is common practice, and can be used to investigate neuroplasticity. Brain morphology changes have been reported over the course of weeks, days, and hours in both animals and humans. If such short-term changes occur even faster, rapid morphological changes while being scanned could have important implications.

Ethnocultural empathy among students in health care education.

In a multicultural society, ethnocultural empathy has become an important element in most health settings and development of this capacity has become a central component for health care professionals in their interactions with patients and clients. In this study, differences in basic empathy and ethnocultural empathy were explored in a sample of 365 undergraduate students at the beginning and end of four master's programs in health care (medicine, psychology, nursing, and social work). Results showed that it was mainly psychology students in the first semester who had significantly higher general empathic skills and ethnocultural empathic skills compared to students in the other study programs.