Eighty-two undergraduates viewed a simulated therapy segment presented on one of four videotapes identical except for contextual formality. Checks confirmed the validity of the four conditions created by varying the traditionalism of the therapist's attire and office. Ratings of attraction were independent of therapist attire, reinforcing findings of interview analogues that did not include a m...

Patients' expectations about the efficacy and nature of psychotherapy have long been considered important common treatment factors, and the empirical literature has largely supported this perspective. In this practice-oriented review, we examine the research on the association between patients' psychotherapy expectations and both adaptive treatment processes and outcomes. We also examine the re...

It is not always easy for pastoral counsellors to help people change. Often people have become stuck in their ways. Recent developments in the field of brain research help explain why change is difficult. This article discusses Past Reality Integration Therapy (PRI), a psychotherapeutic method that integrates recent findings of brain research and offers an important addition to the work of (pas...

How do university training and subsequent practical experience affect expertise in clinical psychology? To answer this question we developed methods to assess psychological knowledge and the competence to diagnose, construct case conceptualizations, and plan psychotherapeutic treatment: a knowledge test and short case studies in a first study, and a complex, dynamically evolving case study in t...

Mental disorders affect millions of people worldwide and are associated with a huge suffering and unbearable burden for patients and their care givers. The pathophysiology of mental disorders is not fully understood. In recent years, accumulating data suggest that inflammation may play a role in the pathogenesis of these illnesses and that psychotropic drugs exert some anti-inflammatory effects...

A large number of patients with epilepsy and intellectual disability take medication, amongst which antiepileptic and psychotropic drugs, often simultaneously. Certain antiepileptic drugs have mood-stabilizing properties, e.g. carbamazepine, valproic acid and lamotrigine. The aim of this study was to investigate whether the use of these mood-stabilizers is associated with a different use of psy...

This paper outlines the safe and effective use of psychotropic drugs commonly employed in primary care practice. If a patient undergoing primary care develops psychiatric symptoms that necessitate the administration of psychotropic drugs, one needs to be aware of the possibility that the underlying physical disease may have altered the patient’s pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics. Changes in...

BACKGROUND Psychiatric disorders are one of the major causes of morbidity. Development of newer drugs like SSRIs and atypical antipsychotics has altered the treatment paradigms. Various factors like cost of drugs, local paradigms, etc. play a role in the selection of drug therapy and hence, affect the outcome. Keeping this in mind, we conducted a study to delineate the various drugs used in psy...