Franz Caspar

Universität Bern | UniBe · Institute of Psychology

We examined interpersonal problems in psychotherapy outpatients with a principal diagnosis of a depressive disorder in routine care (n = 361). These patients were compared to a normative non-clinical sample and to outpatients with other principal diagnoses (n = 959). These 361 patients were statistically assigned to interpersonally defined subgroup...

Background Depression is one of the more severe and serious health problems because of its morbidity, disabling effects and for its societal and economic burden. Despite the variety of existing pharmacological and psychological treatments, most of the cases evolve with only partial remission, relapse and recurrence. Cognitive models have contribute...

In order to objectify the discussion about a project of the TK, a German health insurance company, which aimed to analyse the effects of a specific quality monitoring system on psychotherapy outcomes, the scientific advisory board summarized the main results of the study. The main results were cited from the final report which confirms the confirma...

Negative biases in implicit self-evaluation are thought to be detrimental to subjective well-being and have been linked to various psychological disorders, including depression. An understanding of the neural processes underlying implicit self-evaluation in healthy subjects could provide a basis for the investigation of negative biases in depressed...

Abstract Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is characterized by both maladaptive thinking and problematic schemas. Kramer and colleagues (2011) showed that using the motive-oriented therapeutic relationship (MOTR), based on the individualized understanding of the patient according to Plan Analysis (Caspar, 2007), can improve treatment outcomes f...

Human behavior and psychological functioning is motivated and guided by individual goals. Motivational incongruence refers to states of insufficient goal satisfaction and is tightly related to psychological problems and even psychopathology. In the present study, individual levels of motivational incongruence were assessed with the incongruence-que...

Les dépressions chroniques sont fréquentes et souvent traitées par des approches traditionnelles. Cet article vise à présenter la nature spécifique de la psychopathologie et un traitement spécifiquement adapté à ces patients avec dépression chronique. Nous décrirons d’abord les spécificités psychopathologiques de cette population, en nous référant...

How do university training and subsequent practical experience affect expertise in clinical psychology? To answer this question we developed methods to assess psychological knowledge and the competence to diagnose, construct case conceptualizations, and plan psychotherapeutic treatment: a knowledge test and short case studies in a first study, and...

A comprehensive understanding of the patient's problems is essential for a constructive therapeutic behaviour, especially in borderline personality disorder (BPD) where difficult interpersonal patterns are persistent. In these circumstances, the use of an integrative case formulation approach such as Plan Analysis, developed by K. Grawe and F. Casp...

The Project of the Techniker Krankenkasse compared 2 systems of quality assurance in outpatient psychotherapy, the established peer review system based on qualitative individual case reports and a new model based on psychometric assessment and feed-back systems. In this publication the members of the project advisory board comment on the results an...

INTRODUCTION: Chronic depression is a frequent disorder and is usually treated using traditional approaches. These approaches rarely take into account the psychopathological specificities of the chronic evolution of the disorder. OBJECTIVE: The present article aims at presenting the specific psychopathological nature of chronic depression and puts...

Provides a reanalysis of data provided by G. Silberschatz et al (1986), who developed a method to assess the compatibility between an interpretation and a patient's psychology, and demonstrated that this factor—plan compatibility—may contribute to an interpretation's effect. In their reassessing of the data the authors demonstrate that raters can r...

Abstract The early phase of psychotherapy has been regarded as a sensitive period in the unfolding of psychotherapy leading to positive outcomes. However, there is disagreement about the degree to which early (especially relationship-related) session experiences predict outcome over and above initial levels of distress and early response to treatme...

No abstract available.

Whereas previous interpersonal research in depression has frequently used self-reports, patients' impact on others is rarely analyzed. We analyzed impacts of 180 depressed psychotherapy outpatients out of 832 diagnostically heterogeneous patients as rated by their significant others. Depressed patients were perceived as more submissive, hostile-sub...

After 5 years of conceptualizing, investigating, and writing about corrective experiences (CEs), we (the authors of this chapter) met to talk about what we learned. In this chapter, we summarize our joint understanding of (a) the definition of CEs; (b) the contexts in which CEs occur; (c) client, therapist, and external factors that facilitate CEs;...

Internet-based self-help for social phobia with minimal therapist support via email have shown efficacy in several controlled trials by independent research teams. The role and necessity of therapist guidance is, however, still largely unclear. The present study compared the benefits of a 10-week web-based unguided self-help treatment for social ph...

Internet-delivered self-help for depression with therapist guidance has shown efficacy in several trials. Results from meta-analyses suggest that guidance is important and that self-help programs without support are less effective. However, there are no direct experimental comparisons between guided and unguided internet-based treatments for depres...

Motive-Oriented Therapeutic Relationship (MOTR, also called Complementary Therapeutic Relationship) has already shown itself to be related to therapeutic outcome in several studies. The present study aims to test MOTR in a 4-session Brief Psychodynamic Intervention for patients presenting with major depressive disorder (MDD) and comorbid personalit...

The patterns of growth and development of the therapeutic alliance over the course of therapy have been of continued interest to psychotherapy researchers. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether a simple institutional metacommunication intervention with clients had an effect on the development of the alliance. This adjunctive instruct...

Motive-oriented therapeutic relationship (MOTR, also called complementary therapeutic relationship) was postulated to be a particularly helpful therapeutic ingredient in the early-phase treatment of patients with personality disorders, in particular borderline personality disorder (BPD). The present pilot study of randomized controlled trial using...

Internet-based self-help for social phobia with minimal therapist support via email have shown efficacy in several controlled trials by independent research teams. The role and necessity of therapist guidance is, however, still largely unclear. The present study compared the benefits of a 10-week web-based unguided self-help treatment for social ph...

Zusammenfassung. Theoretischer Hintergrund: Internetbasierte psychotherapeutische Interventionen haben sich bei verschiedenen Angststörungen, insbesondere der sozialen Phobie, als wirksam erwiesen. Fragestellung: Ziel dieser Untersuchung ist die Überprüfung der mittelfristigen Wirksamkeit eines internetbasierten verhaltenstherapeutischen Programms...

A comprehensive understanding of the patient’s problems is essential to adopt a constructive therapeutic behaviour. This is especially relevant in cases where difficult interpersonal patterns are persistent, as in Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). This can be helped by using an integrative case formulation approach such as Plan Analysis (Caspa...

A Plan Analytic conceptualization of depression is presented. It concentrates on the instrumental perspective: What are the conscious and non conscious motives directing David’s overt and covert functioning and determining his behavior and experiencing? (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

In this article, each author gives a brief comment on similarities he or she sees throughout the case formulations captured in the articles by Watson (2010a), Silberschatz (2010), Goldfried (2010), and Caspar (2010). A systematic comparison is added. Overall, the impression is confirmed and maintained that if authors are ready to renounce the use o...

Introduces a series of articles that includes a case study and case formulations provided by four other contributors. Presentations of cases with a comparison of a number of differing views are an antidote against mere theoretical discussions that may or may not relate to the concrete views different therapeutic orientations have of concrete patien...

In diesem Beitrag wird der Frage nachgegangen, was Grawe unter „Allgemeiner Psychotherapie” verstand, wovon Einschränkungen dieses Leitbildes ausgehen und was Bedingungen für seine Realisierung sind. Weiter wird diskutiert, wieweit das Leitbild geeignet ist, sein Ideal tatsächlich hervorzubringen und wieweit Grawes theoretische Konkretisierungen se...

Over the past decade, a large spectrum of Internet-based interventions for various psychological disorders has been developed. Internet-based treatments vary considerably in their characteristics, and a multitude of interventions, ranging from purely self-help to email therapy, are nowadays available. These approaches are used during different phas...

This chapter examines the construct of interpersonal motivation from theoretical, diagnostic, empirical, and clinical perspectives. Interpersonal motivation is defined as motivation that is directed toward other people. We use basic concepts from goal theory to conceptualize psychological problems and disorders in which interpersonal motivation can...

In this study conducted in the French-speaking part of Switzerland, 52 individuals with social phobia were randomly assigned either to an Internet-based cognitive-behavioral treatment with minimal contact with therapists via e-mail or to a waiting-list control group. Significant differences between the two groups were found at posttreatment on all...

Kramer (2009) reports a case study of the cognitive-behavioral treatment (CBT) of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder that involved individualizing the therapy to the distinctive aspects of the client's personality and life circumstances. This individualization process was facilitated by Grawe and Caspar's "Plan Analysis," which is a model for assessment...

Background: Depression is associated with immense suffering and costs, and many patients receive inadequate care, often because of the limited availability of treatment. Web-based treatments may play an increasingly important role in closing this gap between demand and supply. We developed the integrative, Web-based program Deprexis, which covers t...

Valid individualized case conceptualization methodologies, such as plan analysis, are rarely used for the psychotherapeutic treatment conceptualization and planning of bipolar affective disorder (BD), even if data do exist showing that psychotherapy interventions might be enhanced by applying such analyses for treatment planning for several groups...

Previous research has supported the immediate activation of patients' strengths (resource activation) as an important change mechanism in psychotherapy. Two different studies of integrative cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) treatments demonstrated that fostered strengths-oriented CBT treatments were more effective than the control conditions. With...

Previous research has supported the immediate activation of patients' strengths (resource activation) as an important change mechanism in psychotherapy. Two different studies of integrative cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) treatments demonstrated that fostered strengths-oriented CBT treatments were more effective than the control conditions. With...

Nach welchen Kriterien ist zu beurteilen, ob und in welchem Maß Patienten durch eine Therapie geholfen oder geschadet wird? Diese Frage ist ebenso kontrovers wie die Frage des besten Weges zu einer therapeutischen Verbesserung. In diesem Kapitel geht es nicht in erster Linie um Ziele, Kriterien oder konkrete Veränderungsmittel, sondern um die Frage...

Vermeidungsprozesse sind bei der Beschreibung und Erklärung von Angststörungen zentral, spielen aber auch bei Depressionen eine wichtige Rolle. Die Cognitive-Behavioral Avoidance Scale erfasst depressives Vermeiden (Ottenbreit & Dobson, 2004). Die deutsche Übersetzung wurde an einer Stichprobe von insgesamt 657 Probanden (187 ambulante Psychotherap...

Neurobiologische Befunde legen nahe, dass erfolgreiche Psychotherapien Veranderungen im Gehirn ihrer Patienten bewirken. Entsprechend kann die Veranderung neuronaler Prozesse und Strukturen durch Psychotherapie als neuronales Korrelat psychotherapeutischer Wirkmechanismen betrachtet werden. Was kann die Psychotherapie durch die Berucksichtigung die...

Responsiveness, definiert als Sich-Einstellen des Therapeuten an Besonderheiten eines Patienten im Therapieprozess, ist kein einfach zu messendes Merkmal. Ziel: In diesem Beitrag wird auf verschiedene inhaltliche Konzepte zur Responsiveness ebenso eingegangen wie auf methodische Aspekte des indirekten und des direkten Erfassens. Vorgehen: Der Ansat...

Deficits in emotion-regulation skills have widely been shown to be associated with poor emotional adjustment. However, it is still unclear whether these deficits are a cause or a consequence of poor adjustment. The purpose of the present research was to clarify the reciprocal effects between these 2 concepts. In 2 studies (Ns = 446 and 635), self-r...

The questions raised by Paul Wachtel are addressed in what follows. Some details have needed to be simplified, as what follows tries to describe the situation in two countries. Moreover, in one of them, Switzerland, the situation varies considerably from canton to canton (corresponding to U.S. states), reminding one of the joke in which a child ask...

Plan Analysis provides case conceptualization for psychotherapy patients in general and for personality disorders in particular. Plan Analysis emphasizes the instrumental aspect of behavior and emotions by asking what motives or goals do a patient's functioning serve. The authors briefly describe Plan Analysis and then illustrate it with the psycho...

Als psychotherapeutische Verfahren akzeptiert das Psychotherapeutengesetz (PsychThG) nur wissenschaftlich anerkannte Verfahren. Zu den psychodynamischen Verfahren gehören die klassische Psychoanalyse und tiefenpsychologische Therapie. Letztere ist kürzer, fokussierter und verzichtet auf die Couch. Psychodynamische Verfahren sind stark auf Klärung u...

Internetbasierte Technologien werden heute in praktisch allen Phasen der psychosozialen Versorgung eingesetzt. Bestehende psychotherapeutische Angebote konzentrieren sich dabei auf die Implementierung traditioneller Ansätze ins Internet. Selbsthilfeprogramme werden ins Netz gestellt, Einzeltherapien finden via E-Mail statt und Gruppen treffen sich...

This article discusses three contributions by Edwards, Eells, and Messer to an article series on "seeking an equal place at the therapy research table" for the pragmatic case study method represented in this PCSP journal. The discussion focuses on a single but complex theme that these three authors as a group directly address. This theme is the imp...

Internetbasierte Technologien werden heute in praktisch allen Phasen der psychosozialen Versorgung eingesetzt. Bestehende psychotherapeutische Angebote konzentrieren sich dabei auf die Implementierung traditioneller Ansätze ins Internet. Selbsthilfeprogramme werden ins Netz gestellt, Einzeltherapien finden via E-Mail statt und Gruppen treffen sich...

Plan Analysis is a therapeutic tool used for case conceptualizations and therapy planning. Based on psychological concepts, it aims at understanding the patient's functioning as a whole. Our article presents the main concepts of Plan Analysis. Patient's Plans consist of his or her goals and the means to achieve these goals. They are inferred accord...

Chronic depression is a common disorder which causes significant impairment and enormous treatment costs. Traditional pharmacological and psychological treatment approaches have shown only modest success. The Cognitive Behavioral Analysis System of Psychotherapy (CBASP) by James McCullough is the only therapy developed specifically for chronic depr...

Zusammenfassung Chronische Depressionen sind häufige Störungen, die ausgeprägtes Leiden und enorme Kosten verursachen. Traditionelle pharmakologische und psychotherapeutische Behandlungsansätze zeigten bisher nur mäßigen Erfolg. Bei demCognitive Behavioral Analysis System of Psychotherapy(CBASP) von James McCullough handelt es sich um ein spezifisc...

Discusses articles by Mallen et al (see record 2005-13220-001), Mallen et al (see record 2005-13220-002) and Mallen et al (see record 2005-13220-003) regarding online counseling. The authors review and develop a broad spectrum of ideas related to online counseling. The questions about which of the supposedly relevant aspects actually make a diff...

Many authors have suggested adapting treatment programs to the specific needs of sexual abusers. However, little research has been conducted to understand what these patients seek in therapy or what elements play a key role in keeping them in treatment. In this pilot study, fifteen (N=15) pedophile sexual abusers from La Macaza clinic for sexual ab...