Samuel Mikail

• Managing Director at Sun Life

This chapter provides an overview of a pernicious personality style, perfectionism, and describes a psychodynamic-interpersonally informed treatment for perfectionism known as dynamic-relational therapy (DRT). We describe the nature and our operationalization of perfectionism and provide a rationale for its treatment as a core vulnerability factor...

Several decades of theory suggest that pathological narcissism (PN) may limit psychotherapy success, but empirical evidence for such theories is limited and mixed. In addition, it has been proposed that individuals with high levels of PN may benefit more from supportive compared to interpretive psychodynamic therapies, but no studies thus far have...

Objective: This randomized controlled trial investigated the efficacy of dynamic relational group therapy (DRT) relative to group psychodynamic supportive therapy (PST) in improving perfectionism-related attitudes and components of the perfectionistic self-relationship. Method: Based on a comprehensive conceptualization of perfectionism, 80 commun...

Objective: This randomized controlled trial investigated the efficacy of group dynamic-relational therapy (DRT) relative to group psychodynamic supportive therapy (PST) in treating perfectionism and improving psychological functioning. Hypothesis: Psychodynamically informed therapies, particularly DRT, will be efficacious in treating perfectioni...

The interest in treating underlying core vulnerability factors or transdiagnostic processes has been a focus of much attention. In this paper we describe our application of group dynamic- relational psychotherapy to the treatment of perfectionism, a core personality vulnerability factor associated with various forms and types of dysfunction and dis...

Objective: Despite the known association between therapeutic alliance ruptures and outcomes in individual therapy, there is almost no research on the topic in group therapy. Group therapy is inherently more complex such that interactions occur at multiple relational levels, including member-to-member, member-to-therapist, and member-to-group. Ruptu...

Objective Perfectionism has been described as a multidimensional core vulnerability factor in various forms of dysfunction and disorders. Recently, we described our empirically supported‐dynamic‐relational treatment for perfectionism. This treatment integrates psychodynamic and interpersonal principles to reduce perfectionism and symptoms and enhan...

Objectives The negative impact of pre‐treatment patient perfectionism on therapeutic alliance and outcomes has been well documented. However, there is much to learn about how patient perfectionism impacts the development of the therapeutic alliance. Our study addressed this by examining the extent to which trait and self‐presentational components o...

La société canadienne a beaucoup changé au cours des 40 dernières années. Les changements importants survenus dans le profil démographique, les principaux moteurs économiques, les normes sociétales, la technologie, la santé, les soins de santé et les tendances sociopolitiques ont eu un effet important sur la nature de la psychologie professionnelle...

Clinical Impact Statement Perfectionism is a pernicious personality vulnerability factor associated with myriad forms of distress and psychological disorders. Question: This article attempts to determine whether close other informants (e.g., spouses) can perceive and rate improvements in perfectionism components in patients undergoing a dynamic-rel...

Although previous studies investigated the characteristics of therapeutic alliance in group treatments, there is still a dearth of research on group alliance ruptures and repairs. The model by Safran and Muran was originally developed to address therapeutic alliance in individual therapies, and the usefulness of this approach to group intervention...

Perfectionism, defined as the need to be or appear to be perfect, is a multidimensional personality construct that makes individuals vulnerable to a host of clinical problems including depression, anxiety, personality and eating disorders, as well as suicide behaviors, interpersonal dysfunction, and difficulties achieving successful therapeutic out...

In this article, we describe how individualized feedback, in the form of a clinical formulation, is used in our dynamic-relational group treatment of perfectionism (Hewitt et al., 2015), a core vulnerability or transdiagnostic personality factor. The authors discuss briefly their conceptualization and assessment of perfectionism as well as other as...

This study sought to determine whether clinically significant improvement could be obtained using a psychodynamic/interpersonal group treatment based on a comprehensive conceptualization of perfectionism. A sample of 71 community-recruited perfectionistic individuals participated in the University of British Columbia Perfectionism Treatment Study....

En 2011, le conseil d’administration de la Société canadienne de psychologie (SCP) a créé un groupe de travail ayant pour tâche de préciser les traitements psychologiques basés sur des données probantes dans le but à la fois d’appuyer et de guider les praticiens et d’informer les parties prenantes. Cet article décrit les travaux de ce groupe, prése...

The Commission on the Future of Health Care in Canada (CFHCC) is to be congratulated for addressing the tension among various levels of government regarding health-care funding. The CFHCC also took the progressive step of creating the National Health Council, a body charged with ensuring greater accountability in health care. Psychologists have arg...

Sexual abuse of children is an egregious violation of innocence. Such acts can seriously compromise the emotional and spiritual well-being of individuals, parents, and entire faith communities. It is the gravity of these consequences that influenced the American bishops' zero-tolerance stance reflected in the Norms of 2002. Implicit in the Norms is...

Experts from a variety of fields join forces to show what fuels a most horrific violation of trust—sexual abuse by priests—and how the Church and church structure play a role in this abuse. This riveting work includes chapters by a former Director of the premiere U.S. facility treating clergy who are sexual offenders, by a Jesuit psychologist who a...

Insomnia and depression are common problems for people with chronic pain, and previous research has found that each is correlated with measures of pain and disability. The goal of this study was to examine the combined impact of major depression and insomnia on individuals with chronic pain. The participants were patients with chronic musculoskelet...

Chronic pain is associated with high rates of major depressive disorder (MDD), but somatic symptoms caused by pain may complicate the diagnosis of MDD. Different methods to address this issue include the adoption of an inclusive approach to diagnosis (i.e. including all symptoms when assessing MDD, regardless of their presumed cause), an etiologic...

The impact on Canadian professional psychological treatment practices of the American Psychological Association""s Division 12 (Clinical Psychology) Task Force""s development of criteria and listings for empirically supported psychological treatments, along with other industrial efforts to standardize the identification of treatments with establish...

Examines several interconnected efforts to develop evidence-based practice in professional psychology. We first review the American Psychological Association (APA) Division 12 (Clinical Psychology) Task Force on the Promotion and Dissemination of Psychological Procedures' development of criteria and listings for empirically supported psychological...

The current study compared the emotional adjustment of pregnant couples with and without a history of perinatal loss. Thirty-one pregnant women with a history of perinatal loss and 31 pregnant women with an unremarkable reproductive history were assessed between their 10th and 24th week of gestation. Partners were also recruited. Twenty-eight men w...

OBJECTIVE: To examine the test-retest reliability, construct validity and factor structure of the Pain Beliefs and Perceptions Inventory (PBPI). DESIGN: A sample of 195 individuals attending a chronic pain clinic completed the PBPI along with a preclinic assessment battery. A subset of this sample completed the assessment package two to four weeks...

Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is associated with a high risk of developing major depression, but depression in MS patients frequently goes undetected and untreated. The current study examined the clinical utility of the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) as a screening measure for major depression in newly diagnosed MS patients. Forty-six new referrals to a...

The authors assessed whether social facets of perfectionism were associated with indexes of dyadic and family adjustment. A sample of 83 pain patients and their spouses completed the Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale, Dyadic Adjustment Scale, Family Assessment Device, Beck Depression Inventory, and Multiaxial Pain Inventory. After controlling fo...

The authors assessed whether social facets of perfectionism were associated with indexes of dyadic and family adjustment. A sample of 83 pain patients and their spouses completed the Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale, Dyadic Adjustment Scale, Family Assessment Device, Beck Depression Inventory, and Multiaxial Pain Inventory. After controlling fo...

Depression was examined in 45 patients evaluated within 2 months of diagnosis of MS. At the time of testing, 40% of the MS sample met the diagnostic criteria for major depression, 22% had adjustment disorder with depressed mood and 37% showed no evidence of mood disorder. Personal and family history of depression in patients with MS was also examin...

Extending the earlier work of Mikail et al. (1993), a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA; LISREL VII) of a 4-factor model of pain assessment was tested. This model, comprised of the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) and 13 subscales of the McGill Pain Questionnaire (MPQ) and the West Haven-Yale Multidimensional Pain Inventory (WHYMPI), adequately acco...

The article examines the applicability of attachment theory to the development of and adaptation to chronic pain. We begin with an overview of traditional psychological models of chronic pain, including psychoanalysis, behaviorism, and cognitive—behavioral theory. It is noted that psychoanalytic writings on chronic pain are few. Those that exist ar...

Currently, there is a lack of consensus regarding which measures to use in the assessment of chronic pain patients. This investigation empirically determined the core dimensions tapped by 9 self-report measures commonly used with chronic pain patients. Ss were 315 patients referred to a multidisciplinary chronic pain clinic. The measures assessed e...

The prevalence of major depression in patients with chronic low back pain (CLBP) is approximately three to four times greater than that reported in the general population. In spite of these high prevalence rates, there have been few systematic attempts to investigate the efficacy of treatment for major depression in patients with CLBP. While severa...

35 patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) and 35 matched patients with chronic low back pain responded to a survey on adjustment to disability. Ss were 20–67 yrs old. Data reveal that illness duration and behavioral coping were significant predictors of health care utilization. Pain severity and avoidance coping were significant predictors of depres...

Previous perfectionism measures have not been evaluated for use with clinical samples. This research examined the psychometric properties of the Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale (MPS), a 45-item measure of self-oriented, other-oriented, and socially prescribed perfectionism. Study 1 provided normative data for various patient groups and demonst...

Recent epidemiological studies have indicated that as many as 78% of individuals with chronic pain come from families in which at least one other family member has chronic pain. This suggests that children of individuals with chronic pain may be at particular risk for developing chronic pain conditions in the future. This study examined the relatio...

Surveyed Canadian clinical psychology educators to compile a list of recommended readings for clinical training. 36 faculty members from 18 clinical psychology programs completed a survey asking about their training orientation and the 10 best references for training clinical psychology graduate students. The 15 most frequently endorsed references...

Investigated the effects of 2 self-report procedures on tolerance for pain. 58 female undergraduates, prescreened using a scale of absorption, or heightened attention, received 2 trials of a cold-pressor task. Ss gave ratings of either pain or calmness or no rating. Both self-report procedures resulted in significantly greater tolerance times than...