School counselors are master jugglers and must assume a variety of roles and tasks in order to be successful. Despite common misconceptions, Play Therapy is not for exclusive use with younger children. In fact, adolescents can also benefit from its unique properties. One integrated technique that could prove to be especially helpful with middle…

Two related studies addressed college students' persistence and progress in psychotherapy. In Study 1, using emotional health variables assessed at intake, students who persisted in counseling and demonstrated clinical improvement were compared with those who either did not return for their first session or who did return but stopped before…

Ideally, students requesting services should be seen quickly at their university counseling center to increase the likelihood of a successful treatment outcome. However, in these times of ever-increasing demand for university counseling services and the challenges of securing resources to keep up with that demand, the reality of prompt…

This study examined the effects of a mass-media video intervention on expectations, attitudes, and intentions to seek help from professional mental health care services. A public service announcement-style, mass-media video intervention was developed, with prior empirical research on help-seeking behaviors organized according to the theory of…

The ability to differentiate classroom behaviour management (CBM) strategies is an important skill for novice teachers in increasingly diverse classrooms. Worldwide, little is known about the curriculum content offered to pre-service teachers in the area of CBM. This article reports the findings from the first nationwide survey of Australian…

Objective: The authors sought to determine current trends in residency training of psychiatrists. Method: The authors surveyed U.S. general-psychiatry training directors about the amount of didactic training, supervised clinical experience, and numbers of patients treated in the RRC-mandated models of psychotherapy (psychodynamic,…

This paper explores the idea of possible proto-experiences of the prenatal child in the context of Bion's model of container/contained. The physical configuration of the embryo/foetus contained in the maternal uterus represents the starting point for an enquiry into the unborn child's possible experiences of its state of being contained in a…

C. E. Hill (2004) recently developed the concept of therapist immediacy to capture discussion by the therapist about the therapeutic relationship that occurs in the here-and-now of a therapy session. This concept has been expanded to include discussion about the therapeutic relationship by both the client and therapist, captured by the term…

This study assesses the effectiveness of repeated exposures to a video intervention based on the Elaboration Likelihood Model. The video was designed to increase help-seeking attitudes and perceptions of peer norms and to decrease the stigma associated with seeking counseling. Participants were 290 undergraduates who were randomly assigned to a…

Treatment linkage and adherence to psychotherapeutic interventions can be challenging with suicidal individuals. Health behavior theories, specifically the Health Belief Model, Stages of Change, and Theory of Planned Behavior, focus on individuals' beliefs, their readiness to change, their perceptions of illness severity and "threat," their…

A growing body of research supports the efficacy of cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) for adolescent depression. The mechanisms through which CBT exerts its beneficial effects on adolescent patients suffering from depression, however, remain unclear. The current article reviews the CBT for adolescent depression process literature. Our review…

Certain psychological treatments should be avoided, and a list of such treatments would provide valuable guidance for counselors, as well as potential clients. It is well established that some therapies are potentially dangerous, and some fringe therapies are highly unlikely to help clients beyond a placebo effect. This article provides an…

Problem: A significant concept in psychodynamic theory and practice is that of defence mechanisms. The identifications of defences is a key task of the therapist and these are then used in the formulation and form part of the therapist's interventions. Case studies of psychotherapy with adults who have intellectual disabilities (IDs) suggest that…

Few studies have examined the effectiveness of interventions to improve mental health in the unemployed. Current evidence points to interventions improving mental health but having little, if any, impact on reemployment. In the Australian context, psychological services continue to be delivered yet little is known about their effectiveness. This…

Postpartum depression (PPD) affects a significant portion of women and has serious negative short- and long-term consequences for the woman, infant, and family. This article highlights the feasibility and acceptability of group interpersonal psychotherapy (IPT-G), a manualized approach to PPD treatment, with a high risk and underserved sample of…