Martin Grosse Holtforth

University of Bern | UniBe · Institute of Psychology

Background: Teaching is a genuinely social and highly demanding task. Drawing on Porges' phylogenetic polyvagal theory with three evolved systems and three associated behavioral responses (social engagement, mobilization, and immobilization), we investigated teachers' heart rate and heart rate variability in social interactions using ambulatory ass...

Objective: The aim of this study was to disaggregate the between-patient and within-patient effects of emotion regulation (ER) on treatment outcome and explore relevant trait-like moderators of the within-patient effects. Method: Three hundred thirty-nine patients with heterogenous clinical conditions were admitted to psychotherapy at a clinical ce...

Aggressive student behavior is considered one of the main risk factors for teacher stress. The present study investigated teachers’ physiological and behavioral reactions when facing aggressive student behavior and examined which resources favor adaptive teacher reactions. The sample included 42 teachers. We assessed (a) teacher self-reports (i.e.,...

Objective: Positive outcome expectations are typically associated with a better treatment outcome. However, depressed individuals usually show a pessimistically biased future perspective. This is expected to also affect treatment expectations. Moreover, this pessimistic bias tends to be rather consistent and difficult to modify. Nevertheless, sever...

Background The COVID-19 pandemic has forced many health care providers to make changes in their treatment, with telemedicine being expanded on a large scale. An earlier study investigated the acceptance of telephone calls but did not record satisfaction with treatment or patients’ preferences. This warranted a follow-up study to investigate accepta...

Psychotherapy is a highly collaborative and individualized mental health practice developed in (post-) modern societies. The mental health outcomes of psychotherapy cover a broad range of psychological factors including the reduction of suffering/symptoms as well as the promotion of well-being, personal values, and personal strengths. There is exte...

The study tested a brief intervention to stimulate and help supervisors reduce work-related interruptions among their employees, both at work and during leisure time. The core of the short-term intervention was a workplace analysis of work-related interruptions, which was fed back to supervisors in combination with a work redesign stimulation expla...

Zusammenfassung Psychotherapie ist eine kooperative und individualisierte Behandlung zur Förderung der psychischen Gesundheit, die sich in (post-)modernen Gesellschaften weiterentwickelt. Psychotherapieerfolg umfasst ein breites Spektrum von Kriterien, wie beispielsweise die Verringerung von symptombezogenem Leidensdruck sowie die Förderung von Woh...

Objective: During treatment, the therapeutic alliance is characterized by rupture and repair episodes, which in turn are associated with psychotherapy outcome. It would be important to have a parsimonious tool to identify ruptures in psychotherapy sessions to provide therapists with meaningful feedback about when they occur. The present study thus...

This study aimed to develop and test algorithms to determine the individual relevance of two psychotherapeutic change processes (i.e., mastery and clarification) for outcome prediction. We measured process and outcome variables in a naturalistic outpatient sample treated with an integrative treatment for a variety of diagnoses (n = 608) during the...

BACKGROUND The COVID-19 pandemic has forced many healthcare providers to make changes in the treatments they offer. We evaluated acceptance of telemedicine and preferences. OBJECTIVE The primary aim was to evaluate the acceptance of telemedicine during the COVID-19 pandemic in Switzerland. Further, to assess patients’ preferences and correlation b...

Die SNF-Studie PAUL zu psychobiologischem Stress von Lehrpersonen steht kurz vor Abschluss. Wir nutzen diese Gelegenheit, um auf acht Jahre psychobiologischer Stressforschung bei Lehrpersonen zurückzublicken. Wir setzen uns mit verschiedenen theoretischen Rahmenmodellen und methodologischen Zugängen auseinander und fassen zentrale Studienergebnisse...

Contexte : Les déficits attentionnels chez les patients souffrant de douleur chronique sont courants et bien étudiés. Pourtant, peu d’études ont examiné les effets de la douleur chronique sur les capacités cognitives plus complexes qui dépendent du bon fonctionnement des systèmes attentionnels. Dans la présente étude, nous avons cherché à détermine...

Purpose To describe the details of a systematic review to assess the current evidence about the efficacy of communication strategies on the prevention of chronic postsurgical pain (CPSP). Methods The protocol for this systematic review was based on the Cochrane Handbook methodology and the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-...

Teachers are among the occupational groups with the highest sick leave rates due to workplace stress and burnout symptoms. A substantial body of research has suggested social isolation and neuroticism to be related to physiological stress activity. However, the relationship between such characteristics and stress experiences has rarely been studied...

Teacher stress significantly challenges teachers' health, teaching quality, and students' motivation and achievement. Thus, it is crucial to identify factors that effectively prevent it. Using a LASSO regression approach, we examined which factors predict teachers' psychological strain and allostatic load over two years. The study included 42 teach...

Objectives: To develop individual and effective treatment plans for patients with chronic pain, we aimed to replicate Grolimund et al's (2017) empirical categorization of chronic pain patients on a new and larger sample. Moreover, this work aimed to extend previous knowledge by considering various treatment outcomes and exploratorily analyzing whi...

Challenging interactions are the main source of teacher’ stress in the classroom. We investigated the association of chronic stress and characteristics of teacher-student interactions with teachers’ Hair Cortisol Concentration (HCC). Forty-one teachers (27 women; Mage = 39.65 ± 12.14 years; Mlesson number = 23.15 ± 3.99 lessons per week; grade: ele...

Objective: In process-outcome research, there is a growing body of literature investigating the therapeutic mechanisms underlying the promotion of positive change. This study investigated the between- and within-patient effects of problem mastery and motivational clarification on outcome in patients receiving two variations of cognitive therapies...

As motivation for psychological treatment at intake has been shown to predict favorable outcomes after an inpatient stay, this study aimed to further characterize the different components of psychological treatment motivation that predict favorable treatment outcomes. 294 inpatients with chronic primary pain participating in an interdisciplinary mu...

Aggressive student behavior is considered a leading risk factor for teacher stress. However, teachers’ coping styles may affect how they perceive and respond to aggressive student behavior. This study tests whether teachers’ perceptions of aggressive student behavior mainly mirror objectively observed aggression in presence of the teacher (as coded...

Objective: Given the increasing incidence and prevalence of chronic pain, effective treatments for chronic pain are needed. This study aimed to investigate the role of cognitive and behavioral pain coping regarding the prediction of treatment outcomes among inpatients with chronic primary pain participating in an interdisciplinary multimodal treat...

Background: Most patients suffering from chronic pain are more susceptible to pain and pressure due to higher pain sensitivity. Since psychosocial factors play a central role in developing and maintaining chronic pain, investigating associations between pain sensitivity and psychosocial stressors promises to advance the biopsychosocial understandi...

We set out to replicate findings of significant (a) reductions in pain, psychological distress, and motivational incongruence (i.e., insufficient motive satisfaction) after interdisciplinary multimodal pain treatment and (b) associations between reductions in motivational incongruence (i.e., improved motive satisfaction) and decreases in psychologi...

Introduction Routine Outcome Monitoring (ROM) has emerged as a strong candidate to improve psychotherapy processes and outcome. However, its use and implementation are greatly understudied in Latin-America. Therefore, the aim of the present pilot study conducted in Argentina was to implement a ROM and feedback system grounded on a psychometrically...

Introduction Workaholism in teachers is characterized by the willingness to work until exhausted and may be associated with various adverse health outcomes as well as high economic costs. The present study examines the association between workaholism, vital exhaustion (VE), and hair cortisol concentration (HCC) as indicators of chronic stress. In a...

Introduction: Depression is among the most common mental disorders and one of the leading causes for disability. It is characterized by a high rate of recurrence and about a third of patients develop a persistent course. Moreover, only half of patients achieve recovery and a substantial number of them is treated over life time. Thus, day clinic car...

Introduction: How patients respond to their depressive symptoms plays a critical role in the persistence of depression and their quality of life, as patients tend to ruminate about their symptoms. There is evidence that a self-compassionate attitude may disrupt the ruminative thinking process. Therefore, the present study tested the hypotheses that...

Aim: Treatment expectations are considered to be a common factor in psychotherapy and show a mild to moderate effect on adaptive treatment outcome. However, depression is typically associated with negative expectations about the future. This does also affect expectations about the course of depression and the effect of treatment. It must be assumed...

The therapeutic alliance is considered a robust predictor of psychotherapy outcome. Ruptures and resolutions in the alliance have been the focus of recent alliance literature. Most previous studies investigated their between-patient effects. We used hierarchical linear models to disaggregate the between- and within-patient effects of ruptures on th...

Objectives: This paper presents a randomized controlled trial on assimilative integration, which is aimed at integrating elements from other orientations within one approach to enrich its conceptual and practical repertoire. Elements from Emotion-Focused Therapy (EFT) were integrated into a form of cognitive behavior therapy: Psychological Therapy...

Introduction: The aim of the present study was (1) to validate the method of guilt-induction by means of a written auto-biographical essay and (2) to test whether experimental pain is apt to alleviate the mental burden of guilt, a concept receiving support from both empirical research and clinical observation. Methods: Three independent groups of h...

INTRODUCTION: The aim of the present study was (1) to validate the method of guilt-induction by means of a written auto-biographical essay and (2) to test whether experimental pain is apt to alleviate the mental burden of guilt, a concept receiving support from both empirical research and clinical observation. METHODS: Three independent groups of h...

Clients may be more or less motivated at the start of psychotherapy, and participation may fluctuate at different stages of the psychotherapy process. This kind of motivation is what people usually associate with the term psychotherapy motivation. Ideally, clients are willing to work hard all through the therapeutic process and invest a lot of effo...

Around 50% of patients with major depression do not respond to standard first-line treatments, such as psychotherapy and pharmacotherapy. At the same time, a subgroup exhibits altered functioning of stress-responsive bodily systems, such as the central locus coeruleus/sympathetic nervous system and the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. Giv...

Transdiagnostic psychotherapeutic approaches are increasingly used in neurorehabilitation to address psychological distress. Animal-assistance is thought to increase efficacy. The present study evaluates a psychotherapeutic mindfulness- and self-compassion-based group intervention (MSCBI) with and without animal-assistance for patients with acquire...

Background: Attentional deficits in patients with chronic pain are common and well-studied. Yet, few studies have examined the effects of chronic pain on more complex cognitive abilities that rely on well-functioning attentional systems. With the current study, we aimed to investigate whether the impact of chronic pain on attention affects creativ...

Depression is one of the most prevalent mental disorders, with treatment outcomes generally being unsatisfactory. The identification of outcome predictors could contribute to improving diagnosis, treatment, and outcome. Heart rate variability (HRV), an index of cardiovagal activity, has been proposed as a potential correlate of depression as well a...

Introduction So far, no qualitative content analysis (QCA) has analysed pilots’ experiences and perceptions regarding weaknesses of fatigue risk management (FRM), flight time limitations (FTL), rosters, fatigue-severity, sleep problems, and how they relate to pilots’ mental health and well-being. Objective This research analyses pilots’ describe...

Objective This study Investigates more dimensions than previous studies simultaneously: pilots’ duty rosters, stress, sleep difficulties, fatigue levels, wellbeing, symptoms of depression, anxiety, and common mental disorders (CMD), and how they are interrelated. Background Several scientific studies have confirmed that fatigue can pose a signif...

Objective: Negative Mood Regulation Expectancies (NMRE) describe the expectancies of an individual regarding his or her ability to regulate or reduce negative mood states by certain cognitive or behavioral strategies. NMRE are closely associated with the actual emotion regulation and potentially buffer the negative psychological and physical healt...

We aimed at determining differential characteristics of patients treated by a home treatment (HT) team compared to patients treated on hospital wards. Of 412 consecutively admitted patients, 194 (47.1%) were at least partially treated at home, whereas 218 (52.9%) received inpatient treatment only during an episode of acute illness. A multivariate l...

Objectives: Perceived social isolation (PSI), which can be defined as the perception of a lack of quality or quantity in social relationships, has been linked to numerous psychological and physical health problems, as well as physiological stress variables. The cortisol awakening response (CAR), i.e., an increase of cortisol levels after awakening,...

Although the interrupting effect of chronic pain on voluntary-directed attention is well-documented, research on the impact of chronic pain on involuntary-directed attention remains incomplete. This study aimed to investigate the influence of chronic pain on involuntary as well as voluntary allocation of attention as, respectively, indexed by the P...

The present study investigates the effects of negative mood regulation expectancies (NMRE) on symptom severity of depression in 2 cognitive therapies for depression. The sample included the first 146 consecutively recruited patients from a randomized controlled trial. Patients received 22 sessions of either cognitive-behavioral therapy or exposure-...

Background The legal and ethical guidelines of psychological professional associations stipulate that informed consent by patients is an essential prerequisite for psychotherapy. Despite this awareness of the importance of informed consent, there is little empirical evidence on what psychotherapists’ attitudes towards informed consent are and how i...

Objective: This study aimed to investigate the effects of changes in interpersonal cognitions on outcome during cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) for generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) and how these effects are moderated by patients' interpersonal problems at intake. Method: A sample of 80 adult patients diagnosed with GAD who were undergoing C...

Cómo gestionan los terapeutas novatos el proceso de integración asimilativa? Un estudio de entrevista cualitativa sobre la aplicación de heurísticas implícitas La integración de diferentes enfoques e intervenciones psicoterapéuticas se han convertido en una experiencia de los terapeutas integradores que a menudo se ignoran. El objetivo del estudio...

Background To better understand individual differences between burnout inpatients and improve individually tailored treatments in a psychiatric hospital, cluster analysis based on a number of self-report measures was used to investigate psychosocial characteristics of 96 participants. Method Group membership was analyzed regarding associations wit...

Teachers report elevated levels of stress and psychosomatic illnesses compared to other professions. Teacher stress has far-reaching consequences on their health outcomes, the student's motivation, and the economy. However, research on teacher stress relies mainly on self-reports, hence, assesses stress on purely subjective perception. Personal or...

Background Increased long-term glucocorticoid (GC) secretion is an indicator of chronic biological stress, potentially related to poor health and work quality. In the present analysis, we aimed at testing the association between the teacher-student relationship and hair GC concentration in teachers. Methods The concentration of cortisol (hairE) an...

Introduction Recent recommendations for the treatment of chronic pain patients during the COVID-19 pandemic suggest using telemedicine instead of in-person consultations. Knowing whether chronic pain patients are receptive to the use of telemedicine during a pandemic might improve tailored care. Objective The aims of the present study were to asse...

Objective While previous research focused on pilots’ fatigue, rosters, potential performance-impairment and aviation-safety, this research investigates, how pilots’ work-related and psychosocial stress and rosters can affect their sleep and fatigue. Method A cross-sectional online survey was completed by 192 pilots flying for European operators, 1...

No se han encontrado instrumentos breves válidos en Argentina para monitorear sintomatología psicológica en psicoterapia. Este trabajo presenta la adaptación argentina del Hopkins Symptoms Checklist (HSCL-11) y estudia sus propiedades psicométricas. Una muestra de 356 participantes completó la adaptación del HSCL-11 junto con medidas de depresión,...

Objective: Entrapment describes a feeling of being stuck in an inescapable aversive situation. This feeling often arises in the context of uncontrollable and/or chronic stress and is associated with various psychopathologies. Due to the nature of their disease, also chronic pain patients might experience their situation as unremitting and inescapa...

Aim: In depression, one out of four patients has a chronic course of at least two years’ duration. Therefore, patients with chronic depression usually experience a wide range of functional impairments over a long period of time. Considering this long-term character and the symptoms of depression itself, lack of hope for change is an important and c...

According to consistency theory, insufficient motive satisfaction (motivational incongruence) is associated with psychological distress and mental disorders. High levels of distress and comorbid psychological disorders are common in patients with chronic pain. The aim of the present study was to investigate the role of motivational incongruence in...

Objective: There is little evidence-based knowledge of how psychotherapists should handle both sudden gains and more gradual session-by-session changes, either in general or in individuals suffering from generalized anxiety disorder. Methods: Using an ABAB crossed-therapist randomized clinical implementation trial design (N = 80 patients and 20...

Zusammenfassung. Es gibt zahlreiche neurobiologische, klinische und epidemiologische Belege dafür, dass die Phänomene der Angst- und der Schmerzempfindung eng miteinander interagieren. Beide Systeme gehen mit Stressaktivierungsvorgängen einher, und beide Systeme werden ihrerseits durch Langzeitstress moduliert. Die Koppelung von Schmerz, Angst und...

Psychotherapy is a well-established, efficacious, and fully accepted treatment for mental disorders and psychological problems. Psychotherapy is an interpersonal practice engaging patient values, interests, and personal meanings at every step. Thereby, psychotherapy abounds with moral issues. In psychotherapy ethics, numerous moral issues converge,...

Objective: This study aims to develop and validate the stigma assessment tool for family member caregivers of patients with mental illness (SAT-FAM). Methods: This study was conducted in three phases: (1) explicate the concept of stigma towards family caregivers of patients with mental illness, (2) develop and iteratively optimise a preliminary...

This study analyzed patient–therapist in-session interpersonal complementarity effects on the therapeutic alliance and depression severity during the initial and working phase of cognitive–behavioral therapy for depression. It also explored whether patients’ interpersonal problems moderate those complementarity effects. We drew on a sample of 90 dy...

Background Mental training intends to support athletes in mastering challenges in sport. The aim of our study was to investigate the differential and shared effects of psychological skills training and mindfulness training on psychological variables relevant to athletic performance (e.g., handling emotions or attention control). We assumed that ea...