The Arts, Crafts, and Sciences of Psychotherapy.

Contemporary training and practice of psychotherapy and the research that supports it is the subject of this review. I discuss it in the light of what I value most from my own professional training, which was, in my opinion, highly privileged by comparison with what is offered today. A minimal hoped-for outcome is that younger readers will find valuable tidbits here and there that will be useful in their own versions of psychotherapy.

Reliability, Sensitivity, and Specificity of Case Formulations for Comorbid Profiles in Interpersonal Reconstructive Therapy: Addressing Mechanisms of Psychopathology.

Interpersonal Reconstructive Therapy (IRT) case formulations describe psychosocial mechanisms of affective and personality pathology in ways that enhance the effectiveness of psychotherapy for individuals. With a valid and reliable IRT case formulation, a clinician is in a better position to draw upon effective techniques to maximize treatment effects. The case formulation and treatment models for IRT were described in depth along with the IRT treatment model by Benjamin (2003/2006).

Cardiac Vagal Tone and Quality of Parenting Show Concurrent and Time-Ordered Associations That Diverge in Abusive, Neglectful, and Non-Maltreating Mothers.

Concurrent and lagged maternal respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) was monitored in the context of parenting. One hundred and forty-one preschooler-mother dyads-involved with child welfare as documented perpetrators of child abuse or neglect, or non-maltreating (non-CM)-were observed completing a resting baseline and joint challenge task. Parenting behaviors were coded using SASB (Benjamin, 1996) and maternal RSA was simultaneously monitored, longitudinally-nested within-person (WP), and subjected to MLM.

Tailoring common treatment principles to fit individual personalities.

The American Psychological Association Task Force headed by Castonguay and Beutler (2006) distilled general treatment principles common to all therapies from the empirical literature. As part of this work, Critchifield and Benjamin (2006a, 2006b) summarized principles for treatment of personality disorder. The principles are pragmatic in the sense that they are based on evidence of what works, and clinicians are encouraged to apply them in ways that fit the unique presentation and needs of a given patient.

Internalized representations of early interpersonal experience and adult relationships: a test of copy process theory in clinical and non-clinical settings.

Studies connecting childhood experience and adult psychopathology often focus on consequences of abuse and neglect. Copy process theory (Benjamin, 2003) states that constructive as well as destructive experiences shape adult behavior with surprising interpersonal specificity. Childhood perceptions and social learning are encoded in memory and then "copied" in 3 basic ways in subsequent relationships: Identification (behaving as he or she behaved), Recapitulation (behaving as one behaved when with him or her), and Introjection (treating oneself as he or she was treated).

The relational context of aggression in borderline personality disorder: using adult attachment style to predict forms of hostility.

Attachment theory provides a framework for understanding and predicting critical aspects of aggression in the personality disorders. An association between borderline personality disorder (BPD) and insecure forms of adult attachment marked by high relationship anxiety has been repeatedly observed in the empirical literature. Aggression also has been linked to insecure attachment.

The effects of fixed-time reinforcement schedules on problem behavior of children with emotional and behavioral disorders in a day-treatment classroom setting.

The current study assessed the effects of fixed-time reinforcement schedules on problem behavior of students with emotional-behavioral disorders in a clinical day-treatment classroom setting. Three elementary-aged students with a variety of emotional and behavioral problems participated in the study. Initial functional assessments indicated that social attention was the maintaining reinforcer for their verbally disruptive behavior.

Interpersonal process and outcome in variants of cognitive-behavioral psychotherapy.

Early sessions from three variants of cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) were examined to replicate work done in psychodynamic-interpersonal treatments linking interpersonal process to outcome (W. P. Henry, T.

Principles for psychosocial treatment of personality disorder: summary of the APA Division 12 Task Force/NASPR review.

A wide variety of clinical problems and relational styles are collected under the diagnostic heading of personality disorder (PD). These disorders involve maladaptive, persistent ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving that are associated with both functional impairment and disturbed interpersonal relationships. Personality disorders are difficult to treat, and challenge a therapist's ability to intervene helpfully, in part because the maladaptive patterns can impact the therapy relationship itself.

Anterior capsulotomy for treatment of refractory obsessive-compulsive disorder: results in a young and an old patient.

The objective of this case report was to assess the effect of anterior capsulotomy for obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) in 2 patients beyond extremes of age ranges of published radiofrequency capsulotomy. The youngest patient developed OCD at age 10 with increasing symptoms of tension and worry. The symptoms were refractory to medications and behavioral therapy.

Rational antidepressant selection in the elderly.

Proper selection of antidepressant therapy is of growing importance as new and unique agents are added to the therapeutic armamentarium. Physicians must expend some effort in becoming familiar with the current treatment choices to facilitate selecting agents tailored to the needs of individual patients. The criteria that should be considered in antidepressant selection, assuming equal efficacy at appropriate therapeutic dosages, include propensity of a drug to produce side effects, patient and family history of response to previous antidepressant therapy, pharmacokinetics, ease of administration, drug interaction potential, and emerging data that suggest differential efficacy in specific depressive syndromes.