Abortion is common, yet stigmatized. In some cases, abortion patients may experience feelings of sadness, guilt, anger, and other signs of emotional distress after their pregnancy is terminated. This article offers guidance for counselors seeking to provide nonjudgmental support to promote adaptation and recovery among abortion patients…

There is substantial evidence for the effectiveness of psychological treatments for OCD, and various approaches have been widely recommended. These approaches tend to be characterized by exposure and response prevention (ERP) and also tend to be applied equally to all forms of OCD. Patients/clients (and some therapists) often find ERP to be a…

This paper discusses a recent translational success in combining behavioral psychotherapy with a novel medication, d-cycloserine (DCS), to augment cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) for anxiety disorders. The literature on behavioral theory of exposure-based therapies is provided, followed by a discussion of the role of DCS in enhancing extinction…

Psychotherapy research studies, which balance the pursuit of knowledge with the provision of treatment, can place unique demands on clinicians, patients, and research staff. However, the literature on ethical considerations in psychotherapy trials is minimal. The current paper depicts CBT community standards of practice in the context of two…

Although prescription rates may be declining, benzodiazepines (BZs) are still very commonly prescribed for the treatment of anxiety disorders. Because many anxiety patients require assistance in successfully discontinuing BZs, cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) approaches have been specifically developed to target this issue, and an evidence base…

Chronic noncancer pain (CNCP) is common in the general population as well as in people who have a substance use disorder (SUD) (Exhibit 1-1). Chronic pain is not harmless; it has physiological, social, and psychological dimensions that can seriously harm health, functioning, and well-being. As a multidimensional condition with both objective and…

An eclectic form of psychodynamic psychotherapy is presented to address the emotional problems of exceptionally and profoundly gifted adolescents and adults. The approach includes cognitive/behavioral techniques as well as psychologically informed mentoring, coaching, and advising. Once a psychodynamic formulation was established, it was used to…

Patients suffering from health anxiety are difficult to engage in a psychological treatment, although it has now been empirically established that cognitive behavioral treatments are beneficial for many of these patients. A first important step is to change their orientation from a biomedical to a biopsychosocial perspective. One way of promoting…

In a recent placebo-controlled comparison, behavioral activation was superior to cognitive therapy in the treatment of moderate to severely depressed adults. Moreover, a subset of patients exhibited a pattern of extreme nonresponse to cognitive therapy on self-reports of depression not evident on the clinician ratings. These patients were severely…

Nonadherence with homework assignments and, by implication, "barriers" to homework assignments are a frequent occurrence in the practice of standard cognitive therapy (Beck, A. T., Rush, A. J., Shaw, B. F., Emery, G. (1979). "Cognitive therapy of depression." New York: The Guilford Press). The clinical examples in this article illustrate some of…

The Substance Abuse and Mental Illness (SAMI) program combines cognitive rehabilitation and dual-diagnosis substance abuse treatment within a stages of change context. This article describes the development, implementation, and preliminary outcome analysis of the SAMI program in a forensic hospital.

In chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), facilitating, initiating, and perpetuating factors are distinguished. Although somatic factors might have initiated symptoms in CFS, they do not explain the persistence of fatigue. Cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) for CFS focuses on factors that perpetuate and prolong symptoms. Recently it has been shown that,…

The purpose of this paper is to outline considerations for adapting cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) to Hispanic patients who have recently immigrated, particularly those presenting with depressive symptoms. Culturally competent CBT is framed within a model originally proposed by Rogler and his colleagues (1987). The considerations outlined by…

A large proportion of patients who present for treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) experience comorbid panic attacks, yet it is unclear to what extent currently available PTSD treatment programs address this problem. Here we describe a newly developed treatment, multiple-channel exposure therapy (M-CET), for comorbid PTSD and panic…

Patients with health anxiety often present challenges to assessment and treatment planning. The case of Mrs. A. provides examples of several clinical issues common to these patients. Her symptoms cross several "DSM" diagnostic categories, with a primary presentation of hypochondriasis and secondary presentation of illness phobia. In this article,…