Date of Award

8-1-2013

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Organizational Unit

College of Arts Humanities and Social Sciences

First Advisor

Stephen R. Shirk, Ph.D.

Second Advisor

Anne P. DePrince

Third Advisor

Julia O. Dmitrieva

Fourth Advisor

Iris B. Mauss

Keywords

Adolescents, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Depression, Psychotherapy process, Trauma exposure, Youth

Abstract

Although cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is an efficacious treatment for adolescent depression, recent findings indicate that positive treatment effects are reduced among youth with a history of childhood interpersonal trauma (CIT). The processing of emotionally-difficult content has been previously emphasized in therapeutic models for the treatment of depression, as well as post-traumatic stress disorder. The present study evaluated the impact of emotion processes on treatment outcomes in two forms of psychotherapy (CBT and usual care treatment) for adolescent depression. This study observationally coded client emotional involvement, specifically during discussions of trauma-related content, as a potentially critical mechanism of change in proximal (emotion dysregulation) and distal (depressive symptom) treatment outcomes. Findings showed that client emotional involvement can be reliably evaluated, and further parsed into two separate constructs. Overall, results demonstrated limited evidence to support the link between client emotional involvement and treatment outcomes, as no statistically significant associations were found. Methodological and clinical implications are discussed.

Publication Statement

Copyright is held by the author. User is responsible for all copyright compliance.

Rights Holder

Patrice Siapno Crisostomo

Provenance

Received from ProQuest

File Format

application/pdf

Language

en

File Size

77 p.

Discipline

Clinical psychology

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