Benjamin M. Ogles

Brigham Young University | BYU · Department of Psychology

Background Training in professional psychology is moving beyond knowledge-based education and toward competency-based education. Similarly, experiential learning, focused more on skills than facts, is emphasized in undergraduate education. Few studies, however, have investigated the use of skill-based learning for clinically relevant skills in unde...

Psychotherapy outcome research mainly focuses on scale-level changes and constructs that were developed using cross-sectional statistical analysis, possibly concealing important findings on the level of single items, and limiting the clinical utility of outcome scales. Our goal was to explore changes in symptoms, interpersonal problems, and level o...

Objective. This study reviews the results of a qualitative analysis of psychotherapy clients who deteriorated on the Outcome Questionnaire-45 but reported subjective improvement, one version of a phenomenon called paradoxical outcomes. Method. We screened 106 deteriorators from a college counseling center, assessed their subjective sense of progres...

Objective: psychotherapy outcome research mainly focuses on scale-level changes and constructs that were developed using cross-sectional statistical analysis, possibly concealing important findings on the level of single items, and limiting the clinical utility of outcome scales. Our goal was to explore changes in symptoms, interpersonal problems,...

Higher therapy session frequency has been found to result in faster recovery, but few studies have considered that clients follow diverse trajectories of change in psychotherapy. It is unknown how session frequency may affect the sizes and shapes of change trajectories. The present study examined clients’ change trajectories in weekly and biweekly...

Objective: We identified studies using the facilitative interpersonal skills (FIS) performance task method to determine its psychometric properties, impact on therapy outcomes, connection to therapy process, and effectiveness in training therapists. Method: All peer-reviewed papers and unpublished dissertations/theses were included if they were emp...

A considerable number of clients report adverse or unwanted effects of psychological treatments. This study aimed to synthesize the findings of qualitative studies focused on what clients perceive as negative experiences in psychotherapy. A database search was conducted to find primary studies, and a qualitative meta-analysis was used to aggregate...

Objective We explored factors that predict readiness to change among consumers of pornography. Method We obtained a cross-sectional survey sample concerning problematic pornography use (N = 892; 59% female; 87% White; mean age = 40). The Change Questionnaire was appropriate for this population and produced two internally consistent factors – confi...

Although routine outcome monitoring (ROM) has been demonstrated to improve therapy efficiency and effectiveness , categorizations of improvement or deterioration using ROM measures (typically global symptoms) may not always be consistent with the lived experience of the client. A recent line of investigation examines these discrepancies and recomme...

Background Pornography has become mainstream in society, including in the state of Utah, which is a highly religious, conservative state. Aim The purpose of this study is to gather basic descriptive norms for pornography use in the state of Utah (given its unique religious profile), establish clinical cutoffs based on frequency and duration of por...

Research on sexual consent has increased in recent years, but we know almost nothing about how beliefs about consent are socialized during adolescence, which likely has important implications for behaviors related to obtaining sexual consent. The current study explored the frequency of parent–adolescent consent communication, as well as demographic...

The common factors (CF) hypothesis posits that CF across various therapeutic orientations may explain the therapeutic equivalence observed in the treatment outcome literature. The CF hypothesis was embodied in Frank and Frank’s (1991) contextual model and briefly described by Norcross (2005) as an approach (among many) to psychotherapy integration....

The biopsychosocial model of sports injury is applied to the prediction of injury in marathon runners. Psychosocial correlates of injuries, including atten-tional focus, motivational factors, and training variables are examined. Prospective data were collected from recreational marathon runners (N = 162) in three surveys over a 9 month period. Fort...

Objective: The Clinical Support Tools (CSTs) were developed to help therapists organize and target potential problems that might account for negative outcomes in psychotherapy. The core of CST feedback is the Assessment for Signal Clients. The purpose of this study was to describe and identify patterns of problems that typically characterize off-tr...

Laska, Gurman, and Wampold (2014, pp. 467-481) seek to expand the lens of evidence-based practice by incorporating the common factors perspective. We comment on Laska et al.'s arguments along with the methods used to reach their conclusions. Although we share their view that the common factors explanation for therapeutic equivalence across various...

Recent research demonstrated that more males than females run proportionally close to gender-specific world-class standards, which may serve as an estimate of gender differ-ences in competitiveness and training commitment. The current study is a reexamination of three datasets, totaling 844 male and female marathoners, and focuses on testing the as...

Forty-eight child psychotherapy outcome studies offering direct comparisons of an individual child treatment group to a combined parent-child/family therapy treatment group were included in this meta-analytic review. Results indicate that combined treatments produced a moderate effect beyond the outcomes achieved by individual child treatments, wit...

Consumer satisfaction with treatment is important information for providers of mental health services. The goal of the current study was to examine the relationship between youth and parent satisfaction ratings and the following youth variables: gender, age, primary diagnosis, and changes in functioning and symptomatology after 6 months of services...

The measurement of mental health outcomes has evolved from unstandardized, global, uni-dimensional assessments to those which assess multiple perspectives, using standardized rating scales for specific treatment related issues. What criteria are useful when choosing instruments to measure particular outcomes of specific treatments or services? A co...

It is recommended that an estimate of clinical significance be included in all psychotherapy outcome studies and that this estimate be based on the work of Jacobson and Truax (1991). The concept of clinical significance is defined and put in the context of broadly accepted statistical methods along with its advantages and a rationale for using the...

This study examined sources of therapist effects in a sample of 25 therapists who saw 1,141 clients at a university counseling center. Clients completed the Outcome Questionnaire-45 (OQ-45) at each session. Therapists' facilitative interpersonal skills (FIS) were assessed with a performance task that measures therapists' interpersonal skills by rat...

Objective assessment of child and adolescent behavioral and emotional symptoms is traditionally obtained from multiple sources. However, a substantial body of research indicates that parental and child reports provide significant amounts of contradicting diagnostic information. Although a large and growing body of research attempts to identify pote...

Outcome data collection systems provide the opportunity for comparing agencies, programs, and therapists. However, the political stakes of comparisons raise important issues regarding their perceived validity. The goal of case-mix adjustment is to eliminate potential biasing factors that might render comparisons as inappropriate or irrelevant. In t...

We examined the validity and reliability of a self-report outcome measure for children between the ages of 8 and 11. The Ohio Scales Problem Severity scale is a brief, practical outcome measure available in three parallel forms: Parent, Youth, and Agency Worker. The Youth Self-Report form is currently validated for children ages 12 and older. The O...

Measures of satisfaction have become increasingly popular as indications of psychotherapy outcome both in research and in practice. Several studies have explored the relationship between satisfaction and symptomatic change, with mixed results. The present study examines the relationship among satisfaction, symptomatic improvement, perceived change,...

Reviews the book, Hands-on help: Computer-aided psychotherapy by Isaac M. Marks, Kate Cavanagh, and Lina Gega (see record 2007-07520-000). This book is both timely and useful. It builds on and explores in greater detail the studies included in several recent literature reviews published regarding computer-aided psychotherapy. Focused primarily on...

The Ohio Youth Problems, Functioning, and Satisfaction Scales (Ohio Scales) are a recently developed set of measures designed to be a brief, practical assessment of changes in behavior over time in children and adolescents. The authors explored the convergent validity of the Ohio Scales by examining the relationship between the scales and subscales...

Due to their potential as helpful clinical tools, it is necessary to understand the reasons why certain practitioners are currently using outcome measures and certain others are not. This study investigated the reasons why clinicians use outcome measures based upon factors such as work setting, theoretical orientation and source of payment. Similar...

Reviews the book, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Clinicians: Psychotherapy in Clinical Practice by Donna M. Sudak (see record 2006-06767-000 ). While the author indicates that the book was based on a series of lectures developed for adult psychiatry residents, the cases and topics discussed in the book should have a broad appeal for clinicians in...

By 2015, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention predicts that 50% of all cases of HIV/AIDS in the United States will be in persons 50 years of age or older. This pilot research tested whether a 12-session, coping improvement group intervention delivered via teleconference technology could improve life quality in 90 middle-age and older adul...

This study investigated the influence that information in the form of outcome measures and client verbal reports can have on treatment decisions and clinician judgment of client change. A random national sample of psychologists (N=810, 45% response rate) were given clinical vignettes and asked questions regarding their view of client progress and s...

Research has repeatedly demonstrated that parent and child reports of child behavior and emotional functioning often do not agree in terms of symptom severity or even symptom presence. Given the potential clinical impact that discrepant reports may have on the therapeutic process, a significant amount of research has addressed the factors influenci...

Wraparound approaches are being implemented with children in many mental health systems around the country. Evidence for the effectiveness of the wraparound approach, however, is limited. In addition, the degree to which wraparound interventions adhere to the principles of wraparound has rarely been assessed. We examined the influence of adherence...

This survey investigated psychologists' use of outcome measures in clinical practice. Of the respondents, 37% indicated that they used some form of outcome assessment in practice. A wide variety of measures were used that were rated by the client or clinician. Clinicians who assess outcome in practice are more likely to be younger, have a cognitive...

The primary purpose of this study was to examine whether empirically derived cluster profiles based on scores from the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2) predicted outcomes of surgery at 1 year for patients with low-back pain. On the basis of hierarchical cluster analysis of presurgery MMPI-2 scores for 60 patients, three interp...

Improving the effects of psychotherapy has been accomplished through a variety of methods. One infrequently used method involves profiling patient outcomes within therapist in order to find the empirically supported psychotherapist. This study examined data collected on 1841 clients seen by 91 therapists over a 2.5-year period in a University Couns...

The purpose of the present study was to gather information from coaches regarding their monitoring/management of athlete eating and weight, knowledge of nutritional health issues, availability of prevention/intervention services for athletes at their school, experience with athletes exhibiting symptoms of eating and body image disturbances, and the...

Makes practical recommendations regarding the implementation of outcome assessment in the typical clinical setting. This book is geared toward the practitioner who conducts outpatient psychotherapy. Many options for assessing outcome are available, and this book surveys the broad variety of possibilities and quickly narrows in on the strategies and...

In this article we offer an account of the legal origins and current mandates associated with the least restrictive alternative (LRA), particularly as it applies to the system of care for children with severe emotional disturbances. Despite the inception of the LRA in adult mental health populations in the 1960s, confusion still exists about what t...

Cluster analysis was used to identify groups of children and adolescents with severe emotional disturbances on the basis of 8 child risk factor questions gathered at intake. The sample of 171 youth was divided into 5 clusters: (a) physically abused, (b) suicide attempt risk, (c) delinquent risk, (d) low risk, and (e) sexually abused. Differences we...

The development and initial psychometric studies for the Ohio Youth Problems, Functioning, and Satisfaction Scales (Ohio Scales) are described. The Ohio Scales were developed to be practical yet rigorous, multi-content, multi-source measures of outcome for children and adolescents receiving mental health services. Initial studies suggest that the O...

The meaningfulness of psychotherapy outcome as measured in therapy research is a persistent and important issue. Following a period of emphasis on statistically significant findings for treated versus control groups, many researchers are renewing efforts to investigate the meaningfulness of individual change. Several statistical methods are availab...

In der vorliegenden Studie wird der Frage nachgegangen, inwieweit überdauernde Teil-nahmemotive von Marathon- und Ultramarathonläufern stabil bleiben bzw. sich über die Zeit hinweg verändern. Eine weitere Fragestellung unter¬suchte sportartspezifische Unterschiede in den Teilnahmemotiven von Marathon und Ultramarathonläufern, die unter Umständen au...

The therapeutic alliance has emerged as one of the more important and lasting constructs in psychotherapy research. However, the basic interpersonal skills used by therapists to help shape a positive therapeutic alliance are not well understood. We have turned to construct theory to enrich our ongoing empirical and clinical observations of therapis...

This chapter begins with a definition of models as they have come to be known in psychotherapy. Next, we explore historical and current trends of models within clinical psychology. Whereas treatment models and psychotherapy theories were once considered equivalent, they now imply much more, including the use of treatment manuals, so-called "empiri...

Following the significant industrialization of private health care, managed care strategies for reducing costs are beginning to enter the public sector. Privatization of public mental health dollars is already a reality in some states and a growing possibility in many others. Changes in the financial management of behavioral health care are a sourc...

Two studies, one retrospective and the other prospective, investigated the relation of cognitive strategies (association, dissociation) with injury, motivation, and performance variables among marathon runners. Association was found to predict injury in runners at 4 month follow-up. It appears that association is favored by runners who are more com...

Association and dissociation (A/D) have been identified as important cognitive strategies in the literature on running and exercise. This paper is a comprehensive review of the 20 years of research in the area. Specific topics addressed include historical context, definition and terminology considerations, measurement and design issues, and finding...

N. S. Jacobson and P. Truax's (1991) method for evaluating the clinical significance of client change has gained some prominence in psychotherapy outcome research. However, little has been done to investigate the validity of this methodology. This study addresses this limitation by comparing (a) the perceived level of change (as subjectively report...

The DEPRESSION Awareness, Recognition and Treatment (D/ART) program under the sponsorship of the National Institutes of Health has made consistent efforts to help educate many communities around the nation about depression. One important aspect of this effort includes offering free screening for depression to the general public. Since new technolog...

The measurement of consumer satisfaction with behavioral healthcare services in increasing with market and regulatory requirements. Some organizations refer to the results of their measures as "outcomes." Some confusion and debate has consequently arisen as to the meaning of consumer satisfaction and its relationship to other types of outcomes. In...

Given the perceived importance of supervision and the obvious diversity in the conceptualization, roles, functions, and goals of supervision, there is considerable variability in the purposes and methods of research on supervision. Although there are many ways in which we might focus a review of research on supervision, we have tried to keep centra...

Today, as policy makers and 3rd-party payers increasingly require evidence of client improvement before approving funding, outcome assessment is becoming a necessary component of clinical practice. This practical guide offers clinicians the information they need to successfully integrate this important professional tool into their [psychotherapy] p...

The measurement of mental health outcomes has evolved from unstandardized, global, unidimensional assessments to those which assess multiple perspectives, using standardized rating scales for specific treatment related issues. What criteria are useful when choosing instruments to measure particular outcomes of specific treatments or services? A con...

The clinical significance of research findings is an important issue that, until recently, was often neglected. Statistical methods are available, however, to evaluate the meaningfulness of pre- to post-treatment change. The clinical significance of the National Institute of Mental Health Treatment of Depression Collaborative Research Program Data...

The clinical significance of research findings is an important issue that, until recently, was often neglected. Statistical methods are available, however, to evaluate the meaningfulness of pre- to posttreatment change. The clinical significance of the National Institute of Mental Health Treatment of Depression Collaborative Research Program Data w...

Injury prohibiting continued athletic participation has been hypothesized to have a predictable emotional impact on athletes (Rotella & Heyman, 1986). However, the psychological impact of injury has not been well documented. This study examined the psychological reactions to injury among 343 male collegiate athletes participating in 10 sports. All...