Distress tolerance is often conceptualized as one’s ability to tolerate and withstand negative or uncomfortable emotional states. Distress tolerance was initially studied primarily in relation to risky or dangerous behaviors like smoking and nonsuicidal self-injury. However, with continued research, distress tolerance has emerged as a transdiagnostic risk factor for psychopathology (Leyro et al. 2010) and is being increasingly recognized for …

What is the public health significance of this article? Clinical practice guidelines are increasingly important in healthcare. However, in order to maximize their use in informed decision making as part of care, it is critical to have an understanding of the potential harms and burdens of treatments in addition to the potential benefits. Currently, there is a paucity of data …

Several effective treatments for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) exist, yet nearly half of patients continue to have significant symptomatology after receiving them (e.g., Foa et al., 2018). Augmentation is a way of improving outcomes from standard treatments by adding something before, during, or after standard treatment. Augmentation can work in lots of different ways, and might mean faster or greater …

This SCP Blog by Dr. J. Cobb Scott discusses a recent meta-analysis  published in JAMA Psychiatry that addressed the association between cannabis use and cognitive functioning in adolescents and young adults. The US has experienced substantial shifts in policy and perception regarding cannabis, or marijuana, use over the past decade.As of 2018, cannabis has been legalized for adult recreational use in 9 …

This SCP Blog post by Brittany Speed, Brandon Goldstein, and Dr. Marvin Goldfried discuss their recent publication in CP:SP addressing the role of assertiveness training in clinical psychology. Although psychotherapy has been in existence for over a century, the field has struggled to build upon research findings with consistent, accumulating evidence. One reason for this problem may be because we …

You have probably heard it a million times – there is a technology revolution and mental health services are not exempt. In both research and the private sector there is much buzz about the potential of technology to transform mental health service delivery (Jones, 2014; Kazdin & Blasé, 2011). Case in point, Dr. Tom Insel recently stepped down as the …

Behavioral Activation for Depression During Pregnancy: Results from a multi-site pragmatic randomized controlled effectiveness trial – an SCP blog piece by Drs. Hubley and Dimidjian For many, being pregnant is one of the most important and enjoyable moments in life.  For others, life changes during pregnancy can become major challenges and 1 in 7 pregnant women become clinically depressed (Gavin …

Is “Abnormal Psychology” Really all that Abnormal – a blog post by Jonathan D. Schaefer, a doctoral student of Clinical Psychology at Duke University An assumption held by many—including many mental health professionals—is that people who suffer from one or more mental disorders constitute a small, troubled minority. This assumption is reflected in both the way we talk about mental …

This blog piece by Dr. Douglas Samuel from Purdue University discusses a recently published article in the Journal of Abnormal Psychology.  It is well-established that the approaches to diagnosis differ substantially between clinical practice and research settings. Whereas the typical research study collects data using either a semi-structured interview administered by a research assistant or a self-report questionnaire completed by …

Naturally, we all want to get better at the things that we do.  Psychotherapists too may like to think that as they gain experience, they are continuing to develop their skills and improve the services they provide.  Knowing that therapists contribute significantly to clients’ outcomes (explaining approximately 5% of variance in outcomes; Baldwin & Imel, 2013), therapists’ ability to improve …

by Candice A. Alfano & Simon Lau, Department of Psychology, University of Houston A common saying in the military is that when one person joins the whole family serves. This phrase took on new meaning in the wake of the events of September 11, 2001. Subsequent combat operations required unprecedented rates of lengthy and repeated service member deployments. For many …

Intimate partner violence (IPV) represents a significant clinical problem among veterans and service members. Numerous studies indicate that veterans and service members with greater posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms are at particularly high risk for IPV use (Marshall, Panuzio, & Taft, 2005; Taft, Watkins, Stafford, Street, & Monson, 2011). With large numbers of returning U.S. military members, there is an increasing …

This piece by guest blogger, Dr. Sara Becker, summarizes ideas from her recent manuscript, Direct-to-Consumer Marketing: A Complementary Approach to Traditional Dissemination and Implementation Efforts for Mental Health and Substance Abuse Interventions, published in the March 2015 edition of Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice. Increasing the Use of Effective Behavioral Treatments through Direct-to-Consumer Marketing  One of the greatest challenges facing …

The latest editions of the Advances in Psychotherapy – Evidence-Based Practice Book Series (Hogrefe Publishing) include Autism Spectrum Disorder and Headache. Autism Spectrum Disorder (Vol. 29, 2015) by Joseph, Soorya, and thrum (ISBN 978-0-88937-404-1) is a straightforward yet authoritative guide to effective diagnosis and empirically supported treatments for autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The book starts by reviewing DSM-5 and ICD-10 diagnostic …

In a new article in Clinical Psychology Review, Lindhiem and colleagues describe a meta-analysis on the importance of client preferences for treatment satisfaction, completion rates, and clinical outcome. As the number of treatment options for different mental health conditions increases and clients have more resources available to learn about varying treatments, the idea of shared decision making has come to …

With increased attention paid to the high prevalence of unaddressed mental health problems among our youth, there is a growing demand for increased capacity of mental health care in pediatric primary care (PPC) practices . There are two good reasons why the PPC setting can make a large impact in detecting and managing child and adolescent mental health problems. First, almost all …

By now many of us are familiar with the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) 2009 launch of a new initiative called the Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) project. RDoC continues to be a work-in-progress with the primary goal of developing a classification system for mental health disorders that is dimensional and that links to neurobiological systems. The proposed framework is …