behavioral activation therapy

Clinical approach to depression that seeks to increase participation in positively reinforcing activities.

client-centered therapy

A humanistic-existential insight therapy, developed by Carl Rogers, that emphasizes the importance of the therapist understanding the client’s subjective experiences and assisting the client to gain more awareness of current motivations for behavior: the goal is not only to reduce anxieties but also to foster actualization of the client’s potential.

common factors

An approach to psychotherapeutic integration that aims to understand the common ingredients that work across different forms of therapy, such as rationale for how treatment will take place, therapist expectations for change, and a strong therapeutic relationship.

cultural competence

The capacity of a therapist to understand the patient’s cultural framework and its implications for therapeutic work.

effectiveness

How well a therapeutic treatment works in the real world, in the hands of broader samples of nonacademic, less supervised therapists.

efficacy

How well a therapeutic treatment works under rarified, academic research conditions.

empathy

Awareness and understanding of another’s feelings and thoughts.

empirically supported treatments (ESTs)

Approaches whose efficacy has been demonstrated and documented through research that meets the APA’s standards for research on psychotherapy.

existential therapy

An insight therapy that emphasizes choice and responsibility to define the meaning of one’s life. In contrast with humanistic therapy, it tends to be less cheerful or sanguine in outlook, focusing more on the anxiety that is inherent to confronting one’s ultimate aloneness in the world.

Gestalt therapy

A humanistic therapy, developed by Fritz Perls, that encourages clients to satisfy emerging needs so that their innate goodness can be expressed, to increase their awareness of unacknowledged feelings, and to reclaim parts of their personality that have been denied or disowned.

outcome research

A therapeutic strategy that asks patients to increase or observe the frequency or intensity of a symptom, as in having anxious patients make themselves more anxious or note when and how severely they become anxious.

process research

Research on the mechanisms by which a therapy may bring improvement.

randomized controlled trial (RCT)

Studies in which clients are randomly assigned to receive either active treatment or a comparison (a placebo condition involving no treatment, or else an active-treatment control group that receives another treatment); experimental treatment studies, where the independent variable is the treatment type and the dependent variable is client outcome.

rational-emotive behavior therapy (REBT)

A cognitiverestructuring behavior therapy introduced by Albert Ellis and based on the assumption that much disordered behavior is rooted in absolutistic, unrealistic demands and goals, such as, “I must be universally loved.”

reactance

Resistance to efforts by another to change the person.

self-actualization

Fulfilling one’s potential as an always growing human being; believed by client-centered therapists to be the master motive.

self-efficacy

In Bandura’s theory, the person’s belief that he or she can achieve particular goals.

stepped care

The practice of beginning treatment with the least intrusive intervention possible and moving on to more intensive efforts only if necessary.

technical eclecticism

An approach to psychotherapeutic integration in which the therapist works within a particular theoretical framework but occasionally imports techniques from other orientations—not subscribing to the theories that spawned them, but instead rationalizing the use of each technique from within one’s framework.

theoretical integration

An approach to psychotherapeutic integration that aims to synthesize not only techniques, but theoretical perspectives and paradigms (e.g., psychoanalysis and behavior therapy).

therapeutic (working) alliance

The collaborative relationship between therapist and patient, in which they share an affective bond and an ability to agree on treatment goals.

unconditional positive regard

According to Rogers, a crucial attitude for the client-centered therapist to adopt toward the client, who needs to feel complete acceptance as a person in order to evaluate the extent to which current behavior contributes to self-actualization.