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E' stato pubblicato recentemente un articolo di metanalisi che potrebbe suscitare un certo interesse anche presso in non cultori. ve lo segnalo insieme al suo abstract.
E' questo:
Emotional changes and outcomes in psychotherapy: A systematic review and meta-analysis
May 2023Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology
DOI: 10.1037/ccp0000814
Lab: PSI Psychotherapy Laboratory
Nils Martin SønderlandNils Martin SønderlandOle André SolbakkenOle André SolbakkenDag E EilertsenShow all 5 authorsJon T MonsenJon T Monsen
Objective: This systematic review and meta-analysis summarize current knowledge on emotional change
processes and mechanisms and their relationship with outcomes in psychotherapy. Method: We reviewed
the main change processes and mechanisms in the literature and conducted meta-analyses of process/
mechanism–outcome associations whenever methodologically feasible. Results: A total of 121 studies,
based on 92 unique samples, met criteria for inclusion. Of these, 85 studies could be subjected to metaanalysis.
The emotional change processes and mechanisms most robustly related to improvement were fear
habituation across sessions in exposure-based treatment of anxiety disorders (r = .38), experiencing in
psychotherapy for depression (r = .44), and emotion regulation in psychotherapies for patients with various
anxiety disorders (r = .37). Common methodological problems were that studies often did not ascertain
representative estimates of the processes under investigation, determine if changes in processes and
mechanisms temporally preceded outcomes, disentangle effects at the within- and between-client levels, or
assess contributions of therapists and clients to a given process. Conclusions: The present study has
identified a number of emotional processes and mechanisms associated with outcome in psychotherapy,
most notably fear habituation, emotion regulation, and experiencing. A common denominator between
these appears to be the habitual reorganization of maladaptive emotional perception. We view this as a
central pan-theoretical change mechanism, the essence of which appears to be increased differentiation
between external triggers and one’s own affective responses, which facilitates tolerance for affective
arousals and leads to improved capacity for adaptive meaning-making in emotion-eliciting situations.
What is the public health significance of this article?
This review demonstrates that helping clients differentiate between emotion-eliciting stimuli and their
associated affective responses is essential across theoretical approaches. Increased affective differentiation presumably leads to reorganization of perceptual processes, improves tolerance of emotional
activation, and fosters openness to the informational value of emotions, thus leading to therapeutic
improvement. Findings also indicate that psychotherapy models focusing on emotional processes would
profit from more systematically differentiating between different emotions (e.g., anxiety, sadness, anger,
contempt, disgust, shame, guilt, interest, joy, and tenderness) and more explicitly focusing on helping
clients adaptively express such emotions.
Keywords: psychotherapy process–outcome, emotion, change mechanisms, change processes
State bene
Angelo Inverso