Research Center » Treatment Guidelines
Access concise information on conditions and disorders, including causes and courses of treatment.
Adverse Childhood Experiences and Trauma
Recently the field of trauma psychology has begun to fine-tune its approach to trauma treatment by observing different kinds of trauma, from physical violence to child sexual abuse to growing up in an alcoholic or other dysfunctional family.
Alcohol Problems in Intimate Relationships
Alcohol problems are common, particularly among individuals and families seeking mental health services. Families may present other problems as their primary concerns, but drinking is often the primary cause of or corollary to their presenting problems. As a result, marriage and family therapists should screen all clients for possible drinking problems and complete additional assessments where appropriate.
Anxiety in Developmentally Disabled Individuals and Children
By Grant Kono, LCSW
While I have an extensive background in understanding and treating anxiety in developmentally disabled adults, adolescents and children, the following information is meant to be anecdotal in nature. While the ideas I present can generally be found in mainstream research, it is not necessarily completely supported by theories and literature that are considered to be mainstream.
Bipolar Disorder
Bipolar disorder usually begins in adolescence or early adulthood, although it can sometimes start in early childhood or as late as the 40s or 50s. When someone over 50 has a manic episode for the first time, the cause is more likely to be a problem imitating bipolar disorder (e.g., neurological illness or the effects of drugs, alcohol, or some prescription medications). Access a wide range of information that details the affects of Bipolar Disorder, its causes, and courses of treatment.
Boundaries in the Therapeutic Relationship
By Marjorie L. Rand, Ph.D.
In psychotherapy and in life, boundaries define personal space. This space is called the intersubjective field. It is in the intersubjective field where most spoken and non-spoken boundary negotiations take place. Boundaries can be characterized according to general categories: boundaries of propriety and space, behavioral, verbal and energetic.
Challenging Behaviors and the Coaches they Challenge
Working with consumers who exhibit challenging behaviors can be frustrating and taxing. At the same time the work can be very rewarding when breakthroughs are made. There can be a feeling that heart and determination have paid off. The ongoing payoff is always a feeling of greater understanding and a closer bond between the consumer and the coach.
Cognitive-Behavioral Approach to Treating Cocaine Addiction
A Cognitive-Behavioral approach to treating cocaine addiction attempts to help patients recognize, avoid, and cope. That is, RECOGNIZE the situations in which they are most likely to use cocaine, AVOID these situations when appropriate, and COPE more effectively with a range of problems and problematic behaviors associated with substance abuse.
Countertansference
Here is an approach to therapy that focuses on the therapist's own responses to the client and the therapeutic relationship, instead of on the client's behavior and dysfunctions. This perspective may be especially helpful when working with difficult clients.
Dementia
The term dementia refers to a severe loss of thinking abilities, especially memory. It occurs most often in later years and is especially frequent in those over age 85. Some memory loss is normal as we age, but Dementia is not. Access a wide range of information that details the affects of Dementia, its causes, and courses of treatment.
Depression in Children and Adolescents
Depressive disorders in children and adolescents often go completely unrecognized by families and physicians alike—or the depressive signs are misinterpreted as normal mood swings of a particular developmental stage. In addition, many health care professionals are reluctant to “label” a young person with a mental illness diagnosis, even though early diagnosis and treatment is critical to healthy emotional, social, and behavioral development.
Depression in Pregnancy and the Postpartum Period
Because of the potentially devastating and longstanding effects depression can have on a mother, her children, and their relationship, preventing maternal depression can alleviate distress, maladjustment, and other negative outcomes. Although prevention approaches hold much promise to improve the outcomes of both mother and offspring, the field is in the developing stages.
Domestic Aggression and Traumatic Brain Injury
By Deborah Bryon, M.A., LPC
In the last two decades, family violence has become one of the country’s largest health problems. Former or current partners commit 30% of the murders of women in this country. Aggression affects one out of three marriages, accounts for approximately 12% of all homicides, and has been identified as the most common cause of injury in women.
Early Mental Health Intervention Reduces Mass Violence Trauma
Early psychological intervention guided by qualified mental health caregivers can reduce the harmful psychological and emotional effects of exposure to mass violence in survivors.
Family Therapy with Families Facing Catastrophic Illness
No one avoids illness and death. It is an experience that bridges, by its very nature, the therapist/client relationship, therefore our capacity to be seen is crucial in entering the often lonely experience of illness and death.
FDA Public Health Advisory
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) would like to call your attention to reports of the occurrence of suicidality (both suicidal ideation and suicide attempts) in clinical trials for various antidepressant drugs in pediatric patients with major depressive disorder (MDD).
Geophagia, Commonly Called Pica
By Grant Kono, LCSW
Pica is an eating disorder typically defined as the persistent eating of nonnutritive substances for a period of at least one month at an age in which this behavior is developmentally inappropriate. The definition is occasionally broadened to include the mouthing of nonnutritive substances.
Helping the Child or Adolescent Survivor of Abuse or Violence
Early intervention to help children and adolescents who have suffered trauma from abuse, violence or a disaster is critical. Parents, teachers and mental health professionals can do a great deal to help these youngsters recover.
Hopeless Marriage: Relationship Resolution, Relationship Recover
By: Howard Richard Wax, M.Ed, M.A., LMFT
When is it time to quit? Married couples agonize with the question of resolving profound emotional distress and/or complete emotional indifference by divorce. Often the time between the actual decision to divorce, separate, or in any other way take action is quite unrelated to any one actual event occurring.
Internet-based Research Interventions in Mental Health
E-mail communications, psychoeducational programs, depression screening surveys, various types of online chat rooms, and electronic informed consent are a few examples of the ways in which some researchers and therapists use the Internet. Mental health professionals are progressively coming to terms with the possibilities and limitations the Internet offers and monitoring the efficacy of the evolving field of using the Internet for mental health intervention efforts.
Mental Disorders and Genetics
Despite strong evidence for genetic susceptibility, no specific gene has been unambiguously identified for common forms of mental disorders. Many researchers believe that this is due, in part, to the critical role that the environment plays in modulating genetic susceptibility in mental disorders.
Panic Disorder
Panic disorder with and without agoraphobia is a debilitating condition that will afflict at least 1 out of every 75 people in this country and worldwide during their lifetime. Panic attacks are characterized by sudden and unexpected discrete periods of intense fear or discomfort associated with shortness of breath, dizziness, palpitations, nausea, or abdominal distress. During an attack people often believe that they are having a heart attack or, alternately, that they are losing their mind.
Posttraumatic Stress Disorder
The overall presence of traumatic events in life is very high. For example, the National Comorbidity Survey showed that the lifetime incidence of experiencing traumatic event severe enough to cause posttraumatic stress disorder is more than 50 percent. So, more than one out of two individuals in our country at some point experiences a very severe traumatic event. And it is about the same in males and females – in males, 60 percent, and females, 50 percent.
Research On Survivors Of Suicide
More than 29,000 people in the United States die by suicide every year, leaving behind thousands of loved ones. Referred to as "survivors of suicide," family and friends grieving a suicide death often struggle with their own feelings in relation to the loss as well as the stigma that suicide confers.
Schizophrenia
Schizophrenia has a devastating effect on all aspects of human thought, emotion, and expression. It is the most common psychotic condition and affects nearly 1% of the earth's population, including more than 2.7 million people in the United States. Without adequate treatment, those with schizophrenia and the people who care about them suffer tremendously. Access a wide range of information that details the affects of Schizophrenia, its causes, and courses of treatment.
Self-Injury
You'll hear it called many things. Self-inflicted violence, self-injury, self-harm, Para suicide, delicate cutting, self-abuse, self-mutilation. Broadly speaking, self-injury is the act of attempting to alter a mood state by inflicting physical harm serious enough to cause tissue damage to your body. The most commonly seen forms are cutting, burning, and head banging. People learn that hurting themselves brings them relief from some kinds of distress and turn to it as a primary coping mechanism. The long-term goal in therapy is to create a master list of creative and relationally based alternatives that the self-injurer can utilize when the urge to act upon her/himself arises.
Smoking Cessation
"There has never been a better time for health professionals to help their patients break free from the deadly chronic disease we know as tobacco addiction," said David A. Satcher, MD, Assistant Secretary for Health/Surgeon General. "Starting today, every doctor, nurse, health plan, purchaser, and medical school in America should make treating tobacco dependence a top priority."
The Dynamics of Money in Treatment: Helping Your Clients
To help our clients with money issues, we need to address our own beliefs and behavior with money. The options for financial health are expanded when money is understood not simply as negotiable currency, but as a dynamic force in our lives that directly correlates to our positive and negative intentions. Money can be seen as energy, and energy is a force that we create from the core of our souls, our beliefs and our conditioning.
The Influence of Culture and Immigration
As therapists strive to create personalized treatments for their clients, a better understanding of the complex role that cultural backgrounds and diverse experiences play in mental disorders can be crucial. Newly published culturally-relevant research provides clues that may help reduce health disparities. A special issue of Research in Human Development--June 2007--examines current trends in prevalence and risk factors for mental disorders across the lifespan in diverse U.S. minority populations.
The Numbers Count
Mental disorders are common in the United States and internationally. An estimated 22.1% of Americans ages 18 and older—about 1 in 5 adults—suffer from a diagnosable mental disorder in any given year. In addition, 4 of the 10 leading causes of disability in the U.S. and other developed countries are major depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and obsessive-compulsive disorder.
The Use of Humor in Psychotherapy
By Nancy Ronne, Ph.D.
Potential patients are searching for an analyst or psychotherapist because they are longing for answers, wanting miracle cures and desiring a relationship. They yearn for an analyst who can provide them with a real life connection and relief from what seems to be unbearable. Does that mean that it is inappropriate to use humor with patients who are in distress?
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