Category: Qualitative

Mental health, Qualitative September 6, 2018September 5, 2018

Can hallucinations lead to post-traumatic growth?

If you contemplate how a person’s life would be changed by starting to hear or see things others can’t, can you imagine it could offer anything good? A research team from Hull university and the surrounding NHS trusts suggest that among the tumult, hallucinations can also offer opportunities for growth. Writing in the Journal of Psychology and Psychotherapy, lead author Lily Dixon and her team detail the experiences of seven people who have lived with verbal or auditory hallucinations and how, amid the struggles, their journeys have taken them to some positive places.

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Qualitative, Therapy May 25, 2018May 25, 2018

Seven psychoanalytic psychotherapists reflect on the clients that didn’t get better, or even felt worse

*A key theme was that it felt like having just half the client in therapy*

By Alex Fradera

Psychotherapists are devoted to improving people’s psychological health, but sometimes their efforts fail. A new qualitative study in Psychotherapy Research delves into what therapists take away from these unsuccessful experiences.

Andrzej Werbart led the Stockholm University research team that focused on eight therapy cases where the clients – all women under the age of 26 – had experienced no improvement, or in three cases, had deteriorated. This was based on comparing their pre- and post-therapy symptom levels following one to two sessions per week of psychoanalytically-focused therapy for about two years, to deal with symptoms such as depressed mood, anxiety, or low self-esteem.

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Qualitative, Therapy March 16, 2018April 10, 2018

Psychotherapy trainees’ experiences of their own mandatory personal therapy raise “serious ethical considerations”

By Christian Jarrett

Many training programmes for psychotherapists and counsellors include a mandatory personal therapy component – as well as learning about psychotherapeutic theories and techniques, and practising being a therapist, the trainee must also spend time in therapy themselves, in the role of a client. Indeed, the British Psychological Society’s own Division of Counselling Psychology stipulates that Counselling Psychology trainees must undertake 40 hours of personal therapy as part of obtaining their qualification.

What is it like for trainees to complete their own mandatory therapy? A new meta-synthesis in Counselling and Psychotherapy Research is the first to combine all previously published qualitative findings addressing this question. The trainees’ accounts suggest that the practice offers many benefits, but that it also has “hindering effects” that raise “serious ethical considerations”.

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Mental health, Qualitative, Therapy November 23, 2017November 23, 2017

These are the therapist behaviours that are helpful or harmful, according to clients

By Christian Jarrett

Although psychotherapy is effective for many people, it doesn’t help everyone. In fact, in some cases it can do more harm than good. And while clinical researchers publish many studies into the outcomes of different therapeutic approaches, such as CBT or psychoanalytic psychotherapy, we actually know relatively little about the specific therapist behaviours that clients find beneficial or unwelcome.

A new study in the Journal of Clinical Psychology, although it involves only a small sample, has broken new ground by asking clients to provide detailed feedback on a second-by-second basis of their experience of a recent therapy session, and to explain their perspective on what took place. Intriguingly, the very same therapist behaviours were sometimes identified as helpful and at other times as a hindrance, showing just what a challenge it is to be a therapist.

“It is important to recognise that all therapists are going to make mistakes,” write Joshua Swift at Idaho State University, and his colleagues. “Perhaps the success of the session does not depend on whether errors are made but on the frequency of mistakes and how quickly therapists are able to repair them.”

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environmental, Personality, Qualitative July 5, 2017

You don’t have to climb a mountain for a “peak experience” in nature to be life-changing

By Emma Young

We’re all familiar with the idea that nature can be psychologically uplifting. But for some people, a single, brief “peak experience” in a natural setting, lasting mere seconds or minutes, changes their view of themselves or their relationships with others so profoundly that their lives are positively transformed as a result. A new study in the Journal of Humanistic Psychology explores exactly how and why this happens. The researchers LIa Naor and Ofra Mayseless at the University of Haifa, Israel, advertised on the internet for people who felt they’d had a transformative experience in nature to get in touch for an interview. “It was not difficult to find participants; in fact many people replied and were eager to share their experience,” they wrote.

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Dating, Gender, Qualitative, Sex June 20, 2017

What is it like to be the partner of someone who is transgender?

By Emma Young

The experiences of people who’ve been through a gender transition have been studied and analysed by psychologists – showing, for example, improved psychological wellbeing and self-esteem after hormone treatment. But when it comes to their partners, there’s been much less research. According to a new study in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, though, they often go through a kind of life transition of their own, and while there are certainly challenges, there are often positive changes, too.

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Brain, Health, Qualitative January 26, 2017April 11, 2018

An interview with a deep brain stimulation patient: “I’m worried about getting water in the holes in my head”

By Christian Jarrett

Deep brain stimulation is a medical procedure that involves implanting electrodes permanently into the brain and using them to alter the functioning of specific neural networks. A battery inserted subcutaneously in the chest provides the device with power. One application of the technology is as a treatment for Parkinson’s Disease, a neurodegenerative condition that causes tremors and difficulties moving. While the treatment can bring about an impressive alleviation of symptoms, research suggests that Parkinson’s patients often struggle to adjust psychologically. Now a case study published in the British Journal of Health Psychology has provided some of the first insights into what it’s like for a patient to contemplate undergoing surgery for deep brain stimulation, and then to adjust in the immediate aftermath.

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Mental health, Qualitative, Therapy December 13, 2016December 13, 2016

Why some clinical psychologists are ignoring official best practice guidelines

By Christian Jarrett

In England there’s an independent health advisory body that provides guidelines to clinicians working in the NHS, to make sure that wherever patients are in the country, they receive the best possible evidence-backed care. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) was set up in 1999 and many of its guidelines pertain to mental health, and they often promote psychological approaches – for example, the guidelines for depression state that talking therapies should be the first-line of treatment for all but the most severely affected patients. While clinical and counselling psychologists have been involved in producing these guidelines, many of their colleagues – especially those in practice – are highly critical of them. Why? A series of interviews with 11 clinical psychologists, published in Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, sheds new light on the scepticism and concern felt towards NICE guidelines, and why some psychologists are even deliberately ignoring them.

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Mental health, Occupational, Qualitative November 11, 2016December 5, 2016

“A burden and a privilege” – clinical psychologists look back on their life’s work

By Christian Jarrett

Anyone who knows anyone who is a clinical psychologist or other kind of psychotherapist will know about the stories they carry in their minds and hearts. Stories of other people’s struggles, pain, trauma, hurt, love and sometimes, wonderfully, recovery. When the psychologist returns home, the stories stay with them, but now in a parallel world of partners, children, friends and mundanity. What is this life like for the psychologist and her loved ones? How do they cope?

Some clues come from in-depth interviews with nine senior psychologists and three senior psychiatrists in Norway, published recently in Psychotherapy Research by Marit Råbu and her colleagues. The interviewees – 7 women and 5 men, aged 68 to 86 – had worked as psychotherapists for between 35 and 56 years and some were now retired. All had started out their careers with a psychoanalytic orientation, but several had since branched into other approaches, including cognitive therapy.

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