James E. McDonald

• Ph.D.
• Clinical Psychologist at VA San Diego Healthcare System

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is associated with functional impairment and poor quality of life (QoL) across multiple domains, such as social functioning, occupational and educational attainment, physical health, and overall life satisfaction and wellbeing. Yet, there is limited evidence for which PTSD symptom clusters may be more strongly a...

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that opioids are involved in almost 71% of all drug overdose deaths. Although there is increased attention on the lethal potential of opioid addiction, narratives about healing, wherein people have sustained long-term health and well-being from opioid addiction, are few. Our purpose with this stu...

In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic, the murder of George Floyd as well as other Black Americans, waves of violence against Asian American communities, and the 2020 presidential election created a national climate in the United States that almost defies description with regard to historical significance, collective emotional pain, and the urgency of the...

The future career autobiography (FCA) is a narrative, discovery‐based career intervention designed to assess individuals’ career hopes and dreams. In total, 134 low‐income, ethnically and racially diverse middle school students participated in an FCA intervention through a yearlong grant‐funded career development initiative. Using content analysis,...

Researchers (Van Minnen et al., 2015) have examined the relationship between posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and substance use. Yet, this scholarship is often focused on explicit use and does not account for underlying personality variables that might impact the bidirectional relationship between PTSD and substance use (McCauley et al., 2012)....

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) targets six core processes of change including acceptance/experiential avoidance/, mindfulness/lack of contact with the present moment, committed action/inaction, cognitive defusion/fusion, self-as-context/self-as-content, and values clarification/values problems (Hayes, Strosahl, & Wilson, 1999). Previous re...

Despite the relative ubiquity of marriage, the quality of marital relationships has varied significantly over time and across cultures. Although research has shown both compassion and values predict marital quality, researchers remain unclear how these constructs interact to impact marital quality. The purpose of the study described in this article...

Desafíos y crecimiento a través del duelo durante la formación de posgrado En este documento, dos aprendices de psicoterapia que perdieron una figura paterna por cáncer durante la capacitación de graduados discuten esta experiencia compartida. Exploramos la literatura sobre el duelo y cómo la pérdida se ha relacionado con el crecimiento del psicote...

The Add-Wellness model is a humanistic addiction conceptualization approach that combines clients’ phenomenology, diathesis-stress, and wellness factors. Common addiction models are assessed using humanism, the model is presented, and a case example is provided with discussion.

This study focused on married couples in a region of the United States that previous research has identified as having high rates of both religiosity and divorce. As a result, this study was designed to examine the effects of religiosity, forgiveness, and spousal empathy on marital adjustment. To investigate these constructs, married couples in thi...