Antioch University Seattle

To increase the number of family‐based interventions and deal directly with the family dynamic that creates maladaptive manners of coping and connection, structural family therapy (SFT) for autism spectrum disorder (ASD) was developed. The model slowly supports families in being more flexible in their relationships and dynamics while imparting interpersonal skills which enhance communication particularly between the children with ASD and their parents by reforming and supporting an appropriate family structure and family dynamic.

Plain English Summary Avoidant Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID) is an eating disorder (ED) with serious medical and psychological consequences. There is little research that tries to understand the experiences of people with ARFID. We carried out a qualitative study on adults with ARFID to improve our understanding. We interviewed 9 adult women with ARFID who we recruited from social media. We asked them open questions meant to get them to reflect and share about what it is like for them to live with ARFID. We then looked at the transcripts from these interviews and identified major topics (or themes) that were talked about the most. This study examines 1 of the 3 total themes that we found. This theme is about how food restriction makes participants feel safe but also limits their freedom to go places and do things. Participants are caught between an impossible choice between safety and freedom. Overall, this study improves our understanding of what it is like to live with ARFID as an adult. All participants had difficulty tolerating uncertainty, something that people with other psychiatric disorders also experience. Therefore, general treatments that target core issues (like intolerance of uncertainty) may help people with ARFID, people with other psychiatric conditions, or people with both ARFID and other psychiatric conditions. This study also offers insights about the thoughts and feelings of people with ARFID which is new and unique. Qualitative research tends to form a baseline understanding of new or underexplored topics, and so findings from this study can contribute to the development of new assessment measures that ask people what they are thinking and feeling to help diagnosis them and eventually treat them. Lastly, this study helps clinicians and researchers to better understand people with ARFID and what they may be experiencing. This can lead to better outcomes for people with ARIFD.

Counselors‐in‐training require continuous opportunities to reflect on strengths and growing edges. Applying experiential learning theory and the Promoting Excellence and Reflective Learning in Simulation debriefing framework could optimize learning and provide counselor educators with a roadmap to develop a reflective practice within the context of counseling. Psychological safety and cultural considerations are also discussed.

Microaggressions are defined as brief communications directed at members of a stigmatized group that are received as derogatory but are unrecognized by the offender. Studies show that microaggressions are detrimental to those of all identities who endure them. Given that microaggressions can result in specific emotional, psychological, and physical challenges for underrepresented medical students from minoritized backgrounds, it is imperative that the medical education community focus efforts on reducing them and their impact through appropriate responses. The TRAUMA framework was developed by the authors and can be used to organize a thorough response to the threat that microaggressions create for all students. The framework includes improved student support, guidelines for faculty and institutional responses to microaggressions, improved faculty development for addressing microaggressions, recommendations to improve classroom environments, and interventions both to create and measure culture change in medical education.

Background Therapeutically applied Minecraft groups are an intervention designed to support social engagement, confidence, and competence in youth. The flexible interaction format and use of a popular digital game support the fit of this intervention for use with neurodivergent youth. Minecraft is leveraged to support opportunities to build authentic relationships and social confidence in an engaging, low-stakes environment with peers. The group format allows for real-world social practice with peers, while the game environment can support motivation to interact with others, and provides multiple modes for such interaction (i.e., chat, building/movement with the avatar). Methods This article outlines the theoretical foundations of therapeutically applied Minecraft groups as well as practical considerations for implementation. The method outlined includes the justification for this method, process of creating support groups, check-in and check-out processes, and in-game activity examples for different situations. Use Cases Use cases are included to illustrate how the methods have been used in the past to support social growth with neurodivergent youth. Use cases include examples of different Minecraft servers, such as the habitat, and identifying stresses of social growth such as school anxiety and how the use of therapeutically applied Minecraft helped. Conclusions Therapeutically applied Minecraft groups can provide opportunities for peer connection and social practice in a facilitated environment. Though the use of Minecraft and other games to support learning and social connection is prevalent in the media, the academic research in this area is sparse. This article provides an example of Minecraft in use in a therapeutic context and calls for more formal research in this area of therapeutically applied games.

Autistic adolescents and adults commonly experience mental health concerns; however, mental health clinicians may hold implicit stigmatizing views of autism that contribute to case conceptualization and treatment goal setting that align more with caregivers’ than clients’ goals. This impingement on client autonomy is concerning, problematic, and potentially harmful for autistic clients who are of an age to set their own treatment agenda regardless of co-occurring intellectual disability and/or language delays. An application of the shared decision-making framework, an evidence-based tool for promoting client autonomy, can help to avoid these challenges in treatment. In this perspective, we use a case vignette as an anchor for discussing the imperative of honoring autistic clients’ autonomy in mental health treatment and guiding shared decision-making to reduce stigma, promote autonomy, and increase collaborative care for autistic clients in mental health treatment.

Introduction While many professional associations within clinical and counseling psychology have made an aspirational call for clinician awareness of social position, there is a lack of research into how socially-conferred privilege impacts psychotherapy. Specifically of interest is the differences in race and gender within the therapeutic dyad, in which there is a BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and Persons of Color)/white¹ or male/female-identified dynamic. Method The authors utilized a Grounded Theory approach to analyze qualitative interviews with practicing psychologists to construct a process model regarding how socially-conferred privileged identity domains impact the therapeutic relationship and the participants’ professionalization process. Results The analysis identified the core conceptual theme of the Therapist Paragon, representing an idealized version of what a perfect therapist should be. This replicated the foundational figures of our field - primarily older, white men. The process model consisted of two distinct pathways toward the Therapist Paragon, one for BIPOC psychologists and one for white psychologists. The female BIPOC pathway consisted of imposter syndrome, persistent feelings of inadequacy, and tendencies to over-credential their professional identity to seek credibility in the eyes of clients and colleagues. The white pathway consisted of down-playing whiteness and attempting to initially modify behavior toward client cultural norms. Discussion The results point to a distinct professionalization and practice process for BIPOC psychologists compared to white counterparts. This dynamic may have implications beyond increasing support for BIPOC clinicians specifically, but instead indicate a lack of acknowledgement of the psychological impact of socially-conferred privilege in the psychotherapy enterprise overall. Recommendations are offered for revisions to training models, continuing education, and supervision/consultation.

Background and Objectives Internalized ageism and stigma of mental illness may disempower older people and impede help-seeking among those at risk of depression. Arts are deemed enjoyable, stigma-free, and conducive to mental health, and a participatory approach can engage and empower potential service users. This study aimed to co-design a cultural art program and test its feasibility in empowering older Chinese people in Hong Kong and preventing depression. Research Design and Methods Adopting a participatory approach and guided by the Knowledge-to-Action (KTA) framework, we co-designed a 9-session group art program using Chinese calligraphy as the channel for gaining emotional awareness and facilitating expression. The iterative participatory co-design process engaged 10 older people, 3 researchers, 3 art therapists, and 2 social workers through multiple workshops and interviews. We tested the program’s acceptability and feasibility in 15 community-dwelling older people at risk of depression (mean age = 71.6). Mixed methods were used, including pre- and post-intervention questionnaires, observation, and focus groups. Results Qualitative findings suggest the feasibility of the program, and quantitative findings indicated its effects in increasing empowerment (t(14)=2.82, p < .05), but not in other mental health-related measurements. Participants reflected that active participation and learning new art skills were fun and empowering, arts enabled them to gain insight into and express deeper feelings, and groups with peers made them feel relatable and accepted. Discussion and Implications Culturally appropriate participatory arts groups can effectively promote empowerment in older people, and future research should balance eliciting meaningful personal experiences and measurable changes.

Person-centered experiential growth groups can promote self-awareness, increased authenticity, and improve interpersonal skills. Many counselor training programs require counselor trainees to participate in groups as a member as a form of experiential learning when preparing to be a group leader. However, the literature examining the experiences of counselor trainees in a person-centered experiential growth group is scarce, and little information on how to prepare and implement such a group exists. The purpose of this thematic analysis was to explore the narratives of counselor trainees during a person-centered experiential growth group. A constructivist paradigm guided our inquiry. Participants included six master’s level counselor trainees who attended nine weekly group sessions. We identified three emergent themes through our thematic analysis: prior life experiences, therapeutic factors, and challenges. Findings inform counselor educators and group therapists about the unique learning and personal needs of counselor trainees in a person-centered growth group. Limitations are discussed.

Drama therapy empirical research has the potential to support growth within the profession, but changes are still needed to address a lack of racially diverse perspectives represented in studies. A Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) research sub-committee of the North American Drama Therapy Association (NADTA) was formed and members took on the task of reading full-text available articles listed in the NADTA empirical references list ( N = 123) with the aim of identifying representations of race within the research through a content analysis. Our team found limited examples of both author-identified race information and contextualized participant racial demographics. When race was presented, most often as descriptive statistics alone, contextual information about culture or other relevant supportive literature was often lacking. Further research and a more systematic critical review of existing drama therapy empirical studies are needed to formulate recommendations for addressing racial disparities within drama therapy research.

Objectives The religious influence on the construction of emotions like love and hate have lacked empirical attention. This study sought to address this issue by exploring the influence of culture and religion on love and hate using both quantitative and qualitative measures. Method Samples from Japan (n = 397), Thailand (n = 258), the U.S. (n = 198), and Sweden (n = 80) took an online survey on either love or hate. Quantitative measures were used to assess either positive or negative attitudes towards love and hate while qualitative measures were used to assess differences in the concepts of love and hate. Results Quantitative measures revealed that cultures (Japan and Thailand) with stronger Buddhist influence tend to have more moderate views of love and hate, while cultures with stronger Christian (Sweden and the U.S.) influence tend to have more polarized views of love and hate. Qualitative measures revealed that although the universal presence of love and hate share similar qualities across cultures, there are unique elements of both that may be lost when measuring love and hate. Conclusions These findings demonstrate a need to consider the religious influence on emotions. Especially when it comes to emotions like love and hate which have considerable influence over relationships, formation of family, and dissolution of alliances, religion may have a significantly broader influence than currently considered in the empirical literature.

Objective: State of Washington v. Sisouvanh (2012) was the first case in which an appellate court asserted the need for cultural competence in competency-to-stand-trial evaluations. A court reiterated this need in State of Washington v. Ortiz-Abrego (2017). Research in forensic psychology seldom addressed cultural considerations in pretrial evaluations until this past decade, but the growing body of literature pales in comparison to the work found in clinical and counseling psychology. Most of the current literature acknowledges the lack of professionally sanctioned practice guidelines and makes valuable suggestions regarding how to address cultural factors that are relevant to the requisite capacities of legal competency. Yet, none of this research addresses potential risks incurred by the evaluators who attempt to incorporate these suggestions into practice or acknowledges the possible incompatibility between forensic and cultural competency principles. Hypotheses: The authors posit there may be areas of incompatability, or tension, between the tenets of forensic psychology and cultural competency. Method: To examine this potential incompatibility, we reviewed legal cases with cultural implications, addressed recent developments regarding cultural "incompetence," and conducted an overview of cultural competency in clinical and forensic psychology. Results: Comparing general principles of forensic psychology with those of cultural responsiveness and humility, we found that questions emerged regarding the potential philosophical conflicts as well as risks that may be incurred by individual evaluators in legal settings. Conclusions: The resultant dilemma sets the stage for pragmatic suggestions regarding communication, assessment, and diagnosis. Finally, we emphasize the need for sanctioned practice guidelines. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

The School Librarian Investigation—Decline or Evolution? (SLIDE) project is a federally funded study of the almost 20% national decline in the number of full-time equivalents (FTEs) of school librarians between 2015 and 2019, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. In this update to the project’s original research, school librarian employment data for the 2020-2021 school year were examined for 12,537 school districts and associated with district characteristics (poverty, locale, and district enrollment) and student demographics (race and ethnicity). Data supported previous findings that access to school librarians is strongly related to race and ethnicity and further exacerbated for students living in extreme poverty, in more-isolated locales, and in the smallest districts—locales where students are less likely to have access to the educational resources available in large urban areas. In school year 2021, 54% of U.S. students in all districts were without any librarians during the COVID-19 pandemic and almost 3 million students in majority nonwhite districts were without any librarians. The gap between students in districts with a “library privilege” and those without librarians continues to widen.

Introduction Although the American Psychological Association encourages clinical psychologists to recognize and understand the experience of social privilege both within themselves and the individuals and communities they serve, there is a dearth of research in the field to guide this pursuit. According to the available literature, an essential barrier to social privilege integration is its implicit and covert nature that prevents consistent consciousness due to hegemonic forces. Methods This study explored the process, from initial social privilege awareness to the moment of the study, through individual interviews. A social-constructivist, grounded theory approach was utilized as it was aligned with the understudied phenomena oriented around social justice. Results The result is a developmental model of social privilege integration that explicates accumulated exposures to privilege, the resultant threat to and protection of personal identity, and the conducive factors that lead to reconciliation. Discussion Implications of this theoretical model include the importance of a developmental perspective to cultivate an understanding of individual prejudice attitudes and discriminatory behaviors, as well as a roadmap toward equitable change. This model may be used by clinical psychologists across multiple settings in response to the most recent APA multicultural guidelines.

In this essay, we use vignettes to portray our journeys toward, affiliations to and contentions with the “teacher educator” identity. By drawing on critical self-reflection, radical vulnerability and our collaborative discussions and work, we suggest that the formation of a teacher educator identity is relational, tied to emotion and embodied experiences, and career-long. We close with a series of critical questions meant to model the work we believe future teachers and teacher educators can engage in as they negotiate self and sustain a commitment to racial and linguistic equity.

The healthcare workforce in the United States is becoming increasingly diverse, gradually shifting society away from the historical overrepresentation of White men among physicians. However, given the long-standing underrepresentation of people of color and women in the medical field, patients may still associate the concept of doctors with White men and may be physiologically less responsive to treatment administered by providers from other backgrounds. To investigate this, we varied the race and gender of the provider from which White patients received identical treatment for allergic reactions and measured patients' improvement in response to this treatment, thus isolating how a provider's demographic characteristics shape physical responses to healthcare. A total of 187 White patients experiencing a laboratory-induced allergic reaction interacted with a healthcare provider who applied a treatment cream and told them it would relieve their allergic reaction. Unbeknownst to the patients, the cream was inert (an unscented lotion) and interactions were completely standardized except for the provider's race and gender. Patients were randomly assigned to interact with a provider who was a man or a woman and Asian, Black, or White. A fully blinded research assistant measured the change in the size of patients' allergic reaction after cream administration. Results indicated that White patients showed a weaker response to the standardized treatment over time when it was administered by women or Black providers. We explore several potential explanations for these varied physiological treatment responses and discuss the implications of problematic race and gender dynamics that can endure "under the skin," even for those who aim to be bias free.

This article explores how De-sign (the fusion of design and signs) can be utilized as a navigational trajectory toward the integration of cultural sensitivity and environmental sensibility. It affirms that intentionality makes it possible for human beings to make meaning of their world. Navigating through trajectories for the purpose of seeking desired outcomes is a reiterative de-sign process that is constantly adjusting pragmatically. Because de-sign outcomes are only invariant aspects of the unfolding process of synechism and palingenesia, every de-sign situation is a unique journey toward infinite possibilities of creation. De-signers, as agents of intentional change, become envoys of meaning-making that can integrate cultural sensitivity and environmental sensibility. De-sign intentionality makes our trajectories move toward envisioning a meaningful reality, one that goes beyond the schism between culture and nature, between built environment and natural environment. Trajectories innate to the de-sign process transform us into not only lifelong-learners competent of questioning absolute knowledge but also changing agents capable of moving beyond merely being inquisitive, to being reflective, contemplative knowers, genuinely integrating all aspects of the great biosemiosphere.

The person of the therapist (POTT) framework is a model of therapist training that can enhance clinicians' attunement and further clinical efficacy. In this autoethnography, two graduate school professors of colour detail their experience of implementing the POTT framework overlaid to academic work. This article presents specific arguments for the use of this model as it furthers therapist accountability and responsiveness. The model's advantages in clinical graduate training are also reviewed. Keywords: person of the therapist, self of the therapist, clinical training, education, attunement, responsiveness Key Points 1 The article offers a unique framework for the knowledge and development of the self of the therapist. 2 Universities can enhance ethical training opportunities for students in clinically focused programs. 3 Person of the therapist provides a template for individuals to enhance clinical experiences of clients. 4 Inclusion of therapist factors when considering common factors. 5 Family therapists can be leaders in the field of psychotherapy by training attuned clinicians. Person of the therapist (POTT) is a therapeutic framework that was first developed and introduced at Drexel University in their Master's program in the Couple and Family Therapy (CFT) department (Aponte et al., 2009). This framework aims to embrace the 'wounded healer' present in all therapists but also challenges the current acceptance of what self-of-the-therapist matters consist of, that is, self-matters have largely been reviewed through the lens of navigating countertransference within the field of psychotherapy at large, rather than the active development of self. By contrast, POTT embraces the personhood of the therapist, in order to encourage trainees to be accountable for their own responses, including the active use of the therapeutic relationship to enhance positive goals for therapy (Aponte & M endez, 2014; Lutz & Irizarry, 2009). Traditional models of Western psychotherapy focus directly on coun-tertransference when discussing self-of-the-therapist matters in training. In our view this reduces the humanity of the therapist to a simple reflection of the client's projections only. Instead, the POTT model focuses on a multitude of variables that have to do with the therapist's personhood. During the implementation of this program at Drexel, the creators and developers of the model saw students transform in how they viewed themselves, interacted with their clients, and managed their emotions and experiences in sessions. The POTT framework has published information that points to the increased competency and empathy gained by clinicians that engaged in this training (Aponte & Kissil, 2014).

Perhaps in part because it never ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), the United States neither systematically focuses on children’s personalities or talents nor ensures the respect and valuing of students’ culture, as specified in Article 29 of the UNCRC. Instead, narrow conceptions of success and the particularly insidious influences of White supremacist and anti-immigrant perspectives undermine the rights outlined in Article 29. Despite these conditions, individual educators attempt to foster rights-centred education that prioritises the perspectives, personalities, and cultures of young people. We present one example of such efforts: “Teaching and Learning Together,” which positions secondary students as pedagogical partners to undergraduate, secondary teacher candidates. This project enables deep engagement with the perspectives of students—a necessary foundation for teachers who foster the personalities, talents, and cultures of their students. Providing grounding for appreciation of the rich knowledge and deep insight students and their communities bring—and an understanding of participation in their own education as a right—this program represents one model for developing the capacities among teachers in the United States necessary to realising the goals of Article 29 as an ethical imperative in the absence of any national commitment.