Tag: Therapist

Book: Already Free: Buddhism Meets Psychotherapy on the Path of Liberation

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Book Title:

Already Free: Buddhism Meets Psychotherapy on the Path of Liberation.

Author(s): Bruce Lift.

Year: 2011.

Edition: First (1st).

Publisher: Sounds True.

Type(s): Audiobook and Kindle.

Synopsis:

Different Paths, Different Strengths

Freedom from unnecessary suffering is the goal of both Buddhism and modern psychotherapy, yet each approaches this intention from a very different perspective. “Buddhist practice helps us awaken to a well-being that is independent of our circumstances,” explains Bruce Tift, “while Western psychotherapy helps us bring our disowned experience into awareness in order to live in a more skillful and satisfying way.” On Already Free, this therapist and Buddhist practitioner opens a fresh dialogue between these two perspectives, and explores how each provides us with essential keys to experiencing full presence and aliveness.

Practical Tools and Wisdom from the Eastern and Western Traditions

Buddhism gives us powerful tools for breaking free of our own identity drama and our fascination with day-to-day problems, yet it does not address how early childhood experience shapes our adult lives. Western psychotherapy provides a wide range of proven techniques for understanding and untangling the development of our neurotic patterns, but it is only beginning to recognise the powerful impact of exploring awareness itself. “These two approaches sometimes contradict and sometimes support each other,” Tift explains. “When used together, they can help us open to all of life in all its richness, its disturbances, and its inherent completeness.”With a keen understanding of the wisdom of East and West, and a special focus on working with intimate relationships as a pathway to spiritual awakening, Bruce Tift presents seven immersive sessions of insights, wisdom, and practical instruction for realising the fundamental freedom that is your birthright.

Highlights

The Developmental Approach – why we still use our childhood survival skills after we outgrow them The Fruitional Approach – Buddhist wisdom on finding liberation without resolving our historic issues Relationships and Awakening – practices for couples to develop “healthy intimacy” and welcome connection and separateness Why we use “neurotic organisation” to limit our life experience, and how to challenge this self-perpetuating process.

What is the Sustainability of a Biobehavioural Intervention Implemented by Therapists & Sustainment in Community Settings?

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Research Paper Title

Sustainability of a biobehavioral intervention implemented by therapists and sustainment in community settings.

Background

The ultimate aim of dissemination and implementation of empirically supported treatments (ESTs) in behavioural medicine is:

  • Sustainability of the therapist/provider’s EST usage; and
  • Sustainment of EST delivery in the setting.

Thus far, sustainability has been understudied, and the therapist and setting variables that may be influential are unclear.

The purpose of the study was to test the therapists’ sustainability of a cancer-specific EST using a prospective longitudinal design and examine its predictors.

Methods

Oncology mental health therapists (N = 134) from diverse settings (N = 110) completed training in the biobehavioural intervention (BBI) and were provided with 6 months of support for implementation, with no support thereafter. BBI usage (percent of patients treated) was reported at 2, 4, 6, and 12 months.

Using a generalised estimating equation with a logistic link function, 12-month sustainability (a non-significant change in usage from 6 to 12 months) was studied along with therapist, supervisor, and setting variables as predictors.

Results

BBI usage increased through 6 months and, importantly, usage was sustained from 6 (68.4% [95% CI = 62.2%-73.9%]) to 12 months (70.9% [95% CI = 63.6%-77.3%]), with sustainment in 66 settings (60.0%).

Predictors of implementation-to-sustainability usage were therapists’ early intentions to use the BBI (p < .001) and from the setting, supervisors’ positive attitudes toward ESTs (p = .016).

Conclusions

Adding to the DI literature, a health psychology intervention was disseminated, implemented, and found sustainable across diverse therapists and settings.

Therapists and setting predictors of usage, if modified, might facilitate future sustainability/sustainment of ESTs.

Reference

Ryba, M.M., Lo, S.B. & Andersen, B.L. (2019) Sustainability of a biobehavioral intervention implemented by therapists and sustainment in community settings. Translational Behavioral Medicine. pii: ibz175. doi: 10.1093/tbm/ibz175. [Epub ahead of print].