Dementia is a chronic disorder that affects approximately 40 million individuals throughout the globe. This study provides a preliminary description of psychotherapeutic treatment for the management of dementia. This study compares treatment outcomes by both modality (individual, family, and mixed) and provider type. Results found that therapy is a low-cost treatment, however, it is not being often used for people with dementia, or their family members. Participants (n=327) include individuals with ages ranging from 46-95(M=70.52, SD=12.16). Females made up 57.5% (n=188), while males made up 42.5% (n=139) of the sample. Descriptive statistics found that the number of sessions ranged from 1-62 (M=3.17, SD=5.24). The average cost of care for one episode of care was $155.21(SD=276.16), and estimated cost-effectiveness was 207.31 (490.84). There were significant differences found when comparing modality type, with mixed therapy being significantly different than both family and individual therapy across all treatment outcomes. The only significant difference in groups of provider types was in the number of sessions in an episode of care. Findings suggest that although talk therapy treatment has been shown to be cost-effective treatment, it is not used often in treatment.

The purpose of this study was to compare outcomes for patients with Bipolar Disorder or Major Depressive Disorder based on severity of diagnosis. This study also compared psychotherapy providers and therapy modalities on total cost, number of sessions, and dropout. Our data set (N=136,439) came from Cigna, a national health care company. Results showed significant differences by severity of diagnosis. The comparison of providers showed that psychologists had higher costs and session numbers, while the other providers were not significantly different. However, all providers successfully provided low cost treatment on both MDD and BD. There is no support for the idea that one profession is more successful at providing low cost treatment for MDD and BD. Family therapy did significantly better on all outcomes except dropout rate when compared to individual or mixed (individual and family sessions) therapy. It is a low-cost option when treating MDD and BD, regardless of severity.

Extensive interdisciplinary common factor research has identified the therapeutic relationship as a consistent factor influencing therapeutic outcomes. We use Polyvagal and Interpersonal Neurobiology (IPNB) theories to guide an examination of the physiological mechanisms at work in the therapeutic relationship. Both Polyvagal and IPNB theories provide understandings about how humans are neurophysiologically wired for social connection. Each points to a sense of safety as being essential for meaningful connection to occur and clarifies that physiological attunement is an observable indicator of interpersonal connection. In this study, we use these theories to guide an examination of therapist physiological influence on clients in couple therapy, using continuous in-session data collection of respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) for 22 heterosexual married couples and their therapist. Data were modeled in a multi-level path analytic framework to account for within-individual and within-couple effects. Results indicated that therapist RSA does not significantly predict lagged client RSA. A discussion of potential limitations, suggestions for therapists and recommendations for future study is included.

This study used growth curve analysis to investigate associations between interparental conflict, attachment to parents, and adolescent self-regulation outcomes. Using data from 681 families in the Flourishing Families survey obtained in two western U.S. cities, associations between interparental conflict, mother and father attachment, and initial and growth levels of adolescent self-regulation were analyzed across five time points. Adolescent self-regulation showed steady growth across a five-year period during adolescence, suggesting that self-regulation may continue to develop generally throughout adolescence, a finding not revealed in prior research. Adolescent self-regulation increased significantly more in the first city over the five years of the study than in the second. Interparental conflict predicted lower adolescent self-regulation scores initially, confirming prior research, but interparental conflict did not depress the rate at which adolescent self-regulation developed. As interparental conflict increased, attachment to parents decreased, with attachment to father experiencing a greater negative effect than attachment to mother. No moderation effects were found for the interaction of interparental conflict and attachment to parents regarding adolescent self-regulation.

The purpose of this content analysis was to analyze the past 25 years of research in two major social work journals, Social Work and Research on Social Work Practice, to provide a status update on the amount of ethnic-focused research being published within the discipline. This analysis examined trends in ethnic-focused publications, the change across time in percent of focused articles, the top topics studied, per ethnic group, the top funded topics, most and least involved funding agencies, geographical groupings of focused samples, the setting of the samples, measures used, and the percentage of samples based in a clinical versus non-clinical setting. Results showed there has been continued growth and improvement in quality and quantity of minority-focused research in both journals, although there is still room for growth within the discipline towards increased multicultural competence. While the majority of focused research studied African American and Latinos, little attention was given to Asian and Native American populations. Furthermore, while almost twice as many focused articles were funded, compared to non-focused articles, the types of topics being funded are still not as representative of the needs of ethnic minority populations as they could be. While the increase in ethnic focused research over the past 25 years is promising, additional focus within the field is warranted. Suggestions are given to improve the quality and quantity of ethnic-focused research over time.

Measurement invariance across time and reporter is rarely reported in the literature for measures of youth disclosure, even though it is often necessary to establish at least strong invariance before proceeding to further analyses such as comparing means across time or reporter. Measurement invariance was examined across time (ages 11, 14, and 17) and across reporter (youth report of disclosure to mother, youth report of disclosure to father, mother report of youth disclosure, father report of youth disclosure) with a sample of 348 youth and their parents. Youth report of disclosure to mothers demonstrated strong invariance across ages 11-14 and 14-17, but strong equivalence was not found for mother report over time across any age. Youth report of disclosure to mothers and fathers demonstrated strong equivalence at ages 11, 14, 17, and across ages 11-14-17. Mother and father reports also demonstrated strong equivalence at ages 11, 14, and 17. The item "I talk with my parent about how I am doing with school work" had lower factor loadings and higher intercepts at age 11 than at other ages for fathers and mothers and compared to youth report. Implications for youth disclosure theory and construct development are discussed.

This exploratory cross-sectional study examined the relationship between implicit family process rules and adolescent prosocial and antisocial communication behaviors. Data came from two-parent families in wave 5 of the Flourishing Families project which consisted of 322 families (fathers, mothers and children ages 13-17). Both observational and questionnaire data were used in data collection. Prosocial and antisocial behaviors were assessed using observational codes from the Iowa Family Interaction Rating Scales (Melby, et al., 1998). Each of the family members' perceptions were used to assess constraining family rules and facilitative family rules. Findings showed a direct positive relationship between facilitative family process rules and pro-social communication and a negative relationship with antisocial communication. Constraining family process rules were also positively related to antisocial communication behaviors in adolescents. Shame was a significant mediator of the relationship between facilitative family rules and prosocial behavior as well as between constraining family rules and antisocial behavior. Implications for family therapy practice are discussed.

The transfer of cases is common in the practice of Marriage and Family Therapy (MFT). This is especially true in training clinics, where student interns regularly graduate and transfer their cases to students still in the program. Although some research has examined the effect of transferring cases of individual psychotherapy on the success of therapy outcome, little research has examined transfer cases in MFT settings. The transfer process can be conceptualized as a rupture in the therapeutic alliance. From this perspective, a strong therapeutic alliance may mitigate the negative impact of the rupture. Consequently, it was hypothesized that a strong therapeutic alliance with the initial therapist would predict a successful transfer process. Similarly, it was hypothesized that a strong therapeutic alliance with the new therapist would predict a successful transfer process. To test these hypotheses, data were examined from 49 individual, couple, and family therapy cases that experienced a transfer at an MFT training program at a university in the northeastern part of the United States. Results indicated that the therapeutic alliance with neither the initial or new therapist predicted successful therapy transfer. A possible explanation for the lack of significant results may be the small sample size, which limited the statistical power of the analyses. In addition, because of the small sample size, the individual, couple, and family cases were combined in the analyses. Because the therapeutic alliance in couple and family cases has different dimensions than it does in individual cases, it is possible that the true effect of the therapeutic alliance on transfer success was masked in the combined analysis.

This longitudinal study examined the relationship between husband and wife shame and husband and wife sexual satisfaction one year later with husband and wife relational aggression as mediating variables. The sample included 353 heterosexual married couples who participated in the Flourishing Families Research Project, a longitudinal study of daily family life. Results showed that husband and wife shame was negatively related with husband and wife sexual satisfaction, respectively. Husband love withdrawal was negatively related with both husband and wife sexual satisfaction, while wife love withdrawal was negatively related with only husband sexual satisfaction. Each partner's use of social sabotage was negatively related with their partner's sexual satisfaction. Research and clinical implications were discussed.

The purpose of this study was to examine the possible mediating effect of self-esteem on the relationship between attachment security and relationship quality. Previous studies have found a positive association between attachment style and relationship quality. One possible explanation for this link may be self-esteem, which has been shown to consistently predict relationship quality. Therefore, I hypothesized that self-esteem may mediate the relationship between attachment and relationship quality. A sample of 680 married couples that completed the sections on attachment, self-esteem, marital satisfaction, marital stability, and problem areas in the relationship of the RELATE questionnaire between 2011 and 2013 was used. The data were analyzed using an Actor-Partner Interdependence Model (APIM) to help account for shared variance. Results found that there is a positive link between one's attachment and their level of self-esteem and their own relationship quality. However, results also found negative trend-level effects for the links between attachment and partner's level of self-esteem and self-esteem and own relationship quality. There was no mediating effect of self-esteem on the relationship between attachment and relationship quality.