This article describes using imagery approaches during group schema therapy (GST). Imagery approaches are an important tool for identifying and changing maladaptive schema modes and early maladaptive schemas. It summarises the theoretical background of the group imagery method and practical case vignettes. The text describes methods for using imagery in therapeutic groups, building a safe place, imagery rescribing painful experiences, and dialogue between schema modes. It also stresses challenging matters, like problems with imagery, difficulties trusting another person, and resistance to change. Using imagery in GST is a powerful approach to increase patient results during the therapy.

INTRODUCTION:The parallel process is a psychosocial phenomenon where the relationship dynamics between the therapist and the client are repeated in the supervisory relationship between the therapist and the supervisor. The concept of the parallel process can be a useful tool for understanding and solving problems in therapy. However, it can induce supervision drift or block the supervision process. OBJECTIVE:This article aims to familiarize the reader with parallel processes in cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) and schema therapy supervision and discuss how to manage this phenomenon in supervision. METHOD:This article is a narrative review with illustrations of supervision interviews in which the parallel process unfolds. The text provides an overview of theoretical constructions and empirical studies related to the parallel process. We searched PubMed, PsycINFO, Web of Science, and Google Scholar for relevant resources using the keywords "parallel process," "cognitive behavioural therapy," "schema therapy," "transference," and "countertransference." Case vignettes were collected from trainees, training leaders and supervisors to provide real-life examples of how self-reflection and self-experience can enhance CBT and schema therapy training, practice, and supervision.

OBJECTIVE: This article focuses on utilizing therapeutic letters within group schema therapy-an innovative therapeutic approach that integrates elements from various therapeutic approaches. The primary aim is to explore how therapeutic letters can enhance the therapeutic process and support the treatment of patients. METHODS: To achieve this objective, we conducted a narrative literature review centred on schema therapy and using therapeutic letters as a therapeutic strategy. We systematically searched databases (PubMed, PsycINFO, and Google Scholar) using the keywords "schema therapy," "therapy letters," "group," "therapeutic strategies," and "adult psychotherapy." Additionally, we gathered clinical insights from schema therapists through interviews to gain a practical perspective. RESULTS: Group schema therapy primarily targets identifying and modifying early maladaptive schemas and maladaptive schema modes that originate during childhood and persist into adulthood. Within this context, therapeutic letters are an effective tool, allowing individuals to process intense emotions stemming from their formative years. Individuals complete these letters as homework assignments and then, divided into small groups, read them aloud while receiving emotional support and encouragement from their peers. This process enables individuals to explore their thoughts and feelings, potentially reframe their life narratives, seek forgiveness, and ultimately progress. Various types of therapeutic letters are discussed, including the "uncensored letter", "letter from the other site", "letter to a parent child", "business card", and "letter from the future". DISCUSSION: The article provides an in-depth over-view of the techniques and exercises employed in group schema work when using letters. It also addresses potential challenges, such as difficulties with visualiza-tion, resistance to change, and trust issues. CONCLUSION: Therapeutic letters emerge as a valu-able tool in group schema therapy, enhancing the therapeutic process and supporting individual treatment. However, further research is necessary to comprehend and fully maximize their potential

BACKGROUND: Self-reflection is an essential skill for psychotherapists to be aware of, analyze and evaluate their own thoughts, feelings, attitudes and behavior in different situations. This article explores the significance of self-reflection and self-experience in CBT training through a narrative review of the literature and case vignettes based on the experiences of trainees, leaders of training, and supervisors. METHOD: We searched PubMed, PsycINFO, and Google Scholar for relevant resources using the keywords "personal self-reflection", "self-experience", "self-reflection", "training", "cognitive behavioural therapy", and "case vignettes". The case vignettes were collected from trainees, leaders of training, and supervisors to provide real-life examples of how self-reflection and self-experience can enhance CBT training. RESULTS: Self-reflection is taught as a goal and a learning method in CBT training. Self-reflection and self-experience help CBT trainees understand and apply theoretical principles and techniques of CBT to themselves and clients, develop critical thinking and self-evaluation, increase self-awareness and self-regulation, and strengthen professional identity and motivation to learn. The case vignettes illustrate the practical application of self-reflection and self-experience in CBT training. CONCLUSION: This narrative review highlights the importance of personal self-reflection and self-experience in enhancing CBT training. The case vignettes provide valuable insights into the practical application of these skills in therapeutic situations. Further research is needed to explore the most effective methods for teaching and promoting self-reflection and self-experience in CBT training.

Positive social relationships have been variously linked to mental well-being, and it is therefore important to more fully understand the factors that may impede positive relationship development. The aim of this study was to explore the relationships between elementary school-age children's emotion regulation, relationship problems, adaptive behaviour (communication, daily living, social skills), and parental emotion regulation. A sample of 210 parents of children ages 7 to 10 years old reported on their child's socioemotional functioning by completing the Child Behaviour Checklist, Vineland Adaptive Behaviour - III, and the Emotion Regulation Checklist. Parents also reported on their own emotion regulation strategies with the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire. Results showed parental emotion regulation (cognitive restructuring) to be associated both with child emotion regulation and child adaptive functioning. Negative covariance was found between child emotion dysregulation and adaptive functioning ratings. Structural modelling revealed child emotion dysregulation to be the direct predictor of relationship problems.

Self-awareness can be characterised as impartial, non-judgmental thoughtful attention towards the self. Self-reflection in therapy is when a therapist reviews their experiences, thoughts, and behaviours concerning therapy and changes them as needed to enhance the therapeutic process. Therapists with good quality self-reflection can make more effective and ethical decisions, differentiate their own needs from clients', understand transference and countertransference, and consider the optimal response during a session. Practising the CBT approach and reflecting on one's own experiences can be essential for successful therapeutic development. Furthermore, self-reflection forms the basis of a fruitful therapeutic relationship and the therapist's self-confidence and sense of competence.

Objectives: To conduct international comparisons of self-reports, collateral reports, and cross-informant agreement regarding older adult psychopathology. Participants: We compared self-ratings of problems (e.g. I cry a lot) and personal strengths (e.g. I like to help others) for 10,686 adults aged 60-102 years from 19 societies and collateral ratings for 7,065 of these adults from 12 societies. Measurements: Data were obtained via the Older Adult Self-Report (OASR) and the Older Adult Behavior Checklist (OABCL; Achenbach et al., 2004). Results: Cronbach's alphas were.76 (OASR) and.80 (OABCL) averaged across societies. Across societies, 27 of the 30 problem items with the highest mean ratings and 28 of the 30 items with the lowest mean ratings were the same on the OASR and theOABCL. Qcorrelations between the means of the 0-1-2 ratings for the 113 problem items averaged across all pairs of societies yielded means of.77 (OASR) and.78 (OABCL). For the OASR and OABCL, respectively, analyses of variance (ANOVAs) yielded effect sizes (ESs) for society of 15% and 18% for Total Problems and 42% and 31% for Personal Strengths, respectively. For 5,584 cross-informant dyads in 12 societies, cross-informant correlations averaged across societies were.68 for Total Problems and.58 for Personal Strengths. Mixed-model ANOVAs yielded large effects for society on both Total Problems (ES = 17%) and Personal Strengths (ES = 36%). Conclusions: The OASR and OABCL are efficient, low-cost, easily administered mental health assessments that can be used internationally to screen for many problems and strengths.

The homework aims to generalize the patient's knowledge and encourage practicing skills learned during therapy sessions. Encouraging and facilitating homework is an important part of supervisees in their supervision, and problems with using homework in therapy are a common supervision agenda. Supervisees are encouraged to conceptualize the patient's lack of homework and promote awareness of their own beliefs and responses to non-cooperation. The supervision focuses on homework twice - first as a part of the supervised therapy and second as a part of the supervision itself. Homework assigned in supervision usually deals with mapping problems, monitoring certain behaviors (mostly communication with the patient), or implementing new behaviors in therapy.

Supervision can be individual or group. There is a high need for supervision for the therapist's development. A group setting allows the supervision of more therapists with the benefit of using the group dynamics to enhance the therapists' growth. It helps therapists perceive the client's story and treatment from multiple perspectives. Original group CBT supervision was performed as individual supervision of the supervisee in front of the group. Modern concepts involve the whole group in the supervisory process, which takes advantage of the diversity of views and experience and allows the interactions between the group members in the supervision. The group members are invited for role-playing, skills training, imagery rescripting with the protagonist, etc. The research on group cognitive behavioural supervision has only recently started developing.

Dysfunctional patterns, beliefs, and assumptions that affect a patient's perception of other people often affect their perceptions and behaviours towards the therapist. This tendency has been traditionally called transference for its psychoanalytical roots and presents an important factor to monitor and process. In supervision, it is important to put the patient's transference in the context of the conceptualization of the case. Countertransference occurs when the therapist responds complementary to the patient's transference based on their own dysfunctional beliefs or assumptions. Transference and countertransference provide useful insights into the inner world of the patient, therapist, and supervisor. Guided discovery is one of the most common approaches used by a supervisor and a supervisee to map all types and directions of transference and countertransference. Other options to map transference and countertransference are imagery and role-playing techniques.

The main objective of this study was to investigate the association between final-year students’ anxiety level and quality of life (QOL) with their academic achievements. A longitudinal study was performed in regular schools and in high-rated gymnasiums at the beginning and at the end of the school year. Multiple linear regression models were built for the association between level of anxiety/QOL with academic achievements. Type of school and gender—but not the level of anxiety—were the main predictors of academic achievements of 287 adolescents (e.g., for mathematics, the effect estimates were: β = −1.71 [95% confidence interval −2.21; −1.21]; β = −0.50 [−0.95; −0.06], β = 0.09 [−0.02; 0.20] for the type of school, gender, and changes in level of anxiety, respectively). To conclude, particular efforts should be made to reduce the level of anxiety in girls, especially those that study in high-rated schools.

Background Recognising the signs of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) can be a challenge for frontline professionals. The use of brief parent-completed questionnaires for recording the signs of ASD in school-aged children may be an important and efficient contributor to professional insight. However, to date, such questionnaires have not been designed to be used in coordination with current standardised Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) diagnostic tools. Furthermore, the measurement characteristics of such questionnaires have been unexplored across countries that differ in levels of national autism service provision and cultural interpretation of the signs of ASD. Methods A new 14-item questionnaire (Signposting Questionnaire for Autism (SQ-A)) was developed using published DSM-5 items from a clinical interview, the Diagnostic Interview for Social Communication Disorders (DISCO). Measurement comparison was tested with the Short Autism Spectrum Quotient-Child (AQ-10) and the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ). Parents of 4-11-year-old children in the UK (N= 200) and Latvia (N= 104) completed all three questionnaires. Information on clinical diagnosis provided by parents led to classification into three groups: ASD diagnosis, other conditions and no conditions. In the UK, a subsample of teachers also provided cross-informant reliability. Results In both countries, there was evidence of acceptable to good internal consistency for the SQ-A, with significantly higher scores for the ASD group and evidence of convergent and discriminant validity. There was also good parent-teacher reliability for the three measures. Notably, the questionnaires designed specifically to measure autism (SQ-A, AQ-10) performed more similarly to one another compared to the broader SDQ, with differences found for the ASD group. The overall pattern of responding to the three questionnaires was highly similar between countries. Conclusions These results indicate the potential of the 14-item SQ-A to guide frontline professionals in the recognition of the signs of autism in children, facilitating the provision of appropriate support.

One of the leading modern methods used to treat traumatic memories is imagery rescripting. A therapist helps a patient (at least partially) to go through a stressful memory, express their unmet needs, and rescript the experience to become less painful.

Objectives As the world population ages, psychiatrists will increasingly need instruments for measuring constructs of psychopathology that are generalizable to diverse elders. The study tested whether syndromes of co-occurring problems derived from self-ratings of psychopathology by US elders would fit self-ratings by elders in 19 other societies. Methods/design The Older Adult Self-Report (OASR) was completed by 12 826 adults who were 60 to 102 years old in 19 societies from North and South America, Asia, and Eastern, Northern, Southern, and Western Europe, plus the United States. Individual and multigroup confirmatory factor analyses (CFAs) tested the fit of the seven-syndrome OASR model, consisting of the Anxious/Depressed, Worries, Somatic Complaints, Functional Impairment, Memory/Cognition Problems, Thought Problems, and Irritable/Disinhibited syndromes. Results In individual CFAs, the primary model fit index showed good fit for all societies, while the secondary model fit indices showed acceptable to good fit. The items loaded strongly on their respective factors, with a median item loading of .63 across 20 societies, and 98.7% of the loadings were statistically significant. In multigroup CFAs, 98% of items demonstrated approximate or full metric invariance. Fifteen percent of items demonstrated approximate or full scalar invariance, and another 59% demonstrated scalar invariance across more than half of societies. Conclusions The findings supported the generalizability of OASR syndromes across societies. The seven syndromes offer empirically based clinical constructs that are relevant for elders of different backgrounds. They can be used to assess diverse elders and as a taxonomic framework to facilitate communication, services, research, and training in geriatric psychiatry.

The goal of the qualitative research is to investigate common and diverse aspects of the emotional experience of loss caused by death of a close person and divorce as well as to discover crisis coping categories in these situations being reflected in women narratives. Crisis experience have been investigated by analyses of partly structurised interviews of 7 women with experience of loss of a close person and 8 women with experience of divorce. The emotional, cognitive, physical and behavioral changes have been investigated. The information obtained gives the background of understanding of common and diverse aspects in emotional experience in both kinds of losses such as reaction to crisis, although significant contextual differences have been indicated within the process of grieving and divorce and corresponding to it - emotional experience. Using the hermeneutical way of data analyses, three categories of crisis coping methods have been indicated: mental revision, mutual activities and use of personal resources thus characterizing significant aspects of crisis coping process. The sub-systems created within framework of three categories makes united system reflecting crisis as multidimensional process of different kinds of internal and external aspects.