The ultimate goals of the research are to complete a detailed study of what actually changes in the treatment of depression. This will involve tracking the effects of different kinds of change tasks in Process-Experiential therapy and comparing these with each other, and with the changes that occur in Client-centered (C-C) therapy. The links between in-session process, task resolution, session outcomes, inter-session changes, and change over therapy will be studied. The first goal of the present method-development project is to test the reliability and validity of a set of change measures designed to assess the degree of in-session resolution and the degree of post-session and intersession change on three different kinds of emotional problems considered to be determinants of depression. One set of measures will be completed by patients another by trained raters. Relationships among the different measures will also be assessed. If these measures can be validated, a significant step will have been made toward the specification of some of the important intermediate changes that occur in the therapy of depression. The second goal of this project is to pilot the effects of the two treatments on in-session process and on treatment outcome. Fifteen patients will be seen in each of the two treatments, and the outcomes of the two treatments will be assessed by means of a number of standard measures administered pre and post therapy. This will establish estimates of the effect size of the difference in outcomes between the two treatments, enabling us to decide on the potential fruitfulness and the sample size required for an eventual major process-outcome study.
| Pos, Alberta E; Greenberg, Leslie S; Warwar, Serine H (2009) Testing a model of change in the experiential treatment of depression. J Consult Clin Psychol 77:1055-66 |
| Ellison, Jennifer A; Greenberg, Leslie S; Goldman, Rhonda N et al. (2009) Maintenance of gains following experiential therapies for depression. J Consult Clin Psychol 77:103-12 |
| Missirlian, Tanya M; Toukmanian, Shake G; Warwar, Serine H et al. (2005) Emotional arousal, client perceptual processing, and the working alliance in experiential psychotherapy for depression. J Consult Clin Psychol 73:861-71 |
| Pos, Alberta E; Greenberg, Leslie S; Goldman, Rhonda N et al. (2003) Emotional processing during experiential treatment of depression. J Consult Clin Psychol 71:1007-16 |
