COGNITIVE-AFFECTIVE BEHAVIOR THERAPY
with Marvin R. Goldfried, PhD             VIDEO

Purpose of the Series

The American Psychological Association Psychotherapy Video Series presents distinguished psychotherapists of different theoretical orientations demonstrating their own ways of conducting psychotherapy in entire sessions.

Designed for clinical training as well as for continuing education, the videotapes show spontaneous and unscripted sessions, typically representing the third or fourth session in an ongoing course of psychotherapy and typically lasting 40 to 45 minutes. The clients are portrayed by professional actors on the basis of real case materials.

The session you will view attempts to capture the feminist theoretical approach and clinical style in as close to real circumstances as possible.

Toward this end, a number of steps were taken to ensure that both the therapist and the client were anchored, conceptually and experientially, in the clinical material, each other, and previous sessions. First, therapists indicated the type of client and clinical problem with which they typically work or believed allowed the best demonstration of their approach. Second, a client profile was independently developed that included demographic data, clinical history, presenting problem, precipitating event, and other background information. Third, the therapist reviewed this profile for its representativeness and then described what he or she typically would do and would have hoped to accomplish in the first two or three sessions. Fourth, professional actors adept at improvisation were immersed in this clinical history and presentation through formal role induction of the actors by an independent practitioner, to assure that the actor had both a cognitive understanding and an experiential sense of what the client was struggling with, thinking, and feeling. Finally, the actor (in role) and the therapist reviewed the content and process of their earlier sessions immediately before the videotaping so that they were both anchored in the context of the course to date of the particular therapeutic relationship.

About Dr. Goldfried

Marvin R. Goldfried, PhD, is professor of psychology and psychiatry at SUNY Stony Brook. In addition to teaching, clinical super-vision, and research, he maintains a limited practice of psychotherapy in New York City.

A diplomate of the American Board of Professional Psychology, a Fellow in the American Psychological Association, and editorial board member of several journals, he has written numerous articles and books. His most recent book is From Cognitive-Behavior Therapy to Psychotherapy Integration. Dr. Goldfried is co-founder of the Society for the Exploration of Psychotherapy Integration.

Cognitive-Affective Behavior Therapy

The approach is predominantly cognitive-behavioral in orientation, but with the incorporation of contributions from experiential and interpersonally-oriented psychodynamic therapy. It is possible to incorporate elements from these different orientations by thinking of the change process as involving certain common principles. Included among these general principles of change is the facilitation of expectations that the psychotherapy will be helpful; the presence of an optimal therapeutic relationship; the offering of feedback for purposes of increasing the patient's awareness; the encouragement of corrective experiences; and the emphasis on continued reality testing, a form of "working through."

The different therapeutic orientations reflected in this demonstration may be viewed as implementing the more general principles of change. The three major orientations to psychotherapy have something unique to offer, each complementing the other. Thus, behavior therapy has developed innovative methods for increasing the likelihood of the patient having corrective experiences between sessions. Interpersonally-oriented psychotherapy helps us to use the interaction therapeutically as a sample of issues relevant to the patient's life problems. Experiential therapies allow the facilitation of affective arousal, providing patients with a better awareness of what they want or need.

In the videotape, the therapist attempts to increase the patient's expressiveness by helping her tune into her feelings and intentions, encouraging her to respond in accordance with these rather than with the concerns she may have about the potential reactions of others. By starting with an experiential focus on what the patient feels and wants, the behaviorally oriented rehearsal methods may be constructed as an "inside-out" approach to assertion and expressiveness training. The vignette in which the patient becomes angry at the therapist illustrates how this response may be used as a sample of the patient's interactional difficulties.


ORDER CODE:          APA4310230V
VIDEO