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Biomedical subjects

Steven C Hayes

Publications and source records attributed to Steven C Hayes.

13 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2006

An investigation of stigma in individuals receiving treatment for substance abuse.

This study examined the impact of stigma on patients in substance abuse treatment. Patients (N=197) from fifteen residential and outpatient substance abuse treatment facilities completed a survey focused on their experiences with stigma as well as other measures of drug use and functioning. Participants reported experiencing fairly high levels of enacted, perceived, and self-stigma. Data supported the idea that the current treatment system may actually stigmatize people in recovery in that people with more prior episodes of treatment reported a greater frequency of stigma-related rejection, even after controlling for current functioning and demographic variables. Intravenous drug users, compared to non-IV users, reported more perceived stigma as well as more often using secrecy as a method of coping. Those who were involved with the legal system reported less stigma than those without legal troubles. Higher levels of secrecy coping were associated with a number of indicators of poor functioning as well as recent employment problems. Finally, the patterns of findings supported the idea that perceived stigma, enacted stigma, and self-stigma are conceptually distinct dimensions.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed2006

An examination of the Motivational Interviewing Treatment Integrity code.

This study examines the reliability of the Motivational Interviewing Treatment Integrity (MITI) code, a brief scale designed to evaluate the integrity of the use of motivational interviewing (MI). Interactions between substance abuse counselors with one person role-playing a client were audiotaped and scored by trained teams of graduate and undergraduate students. Segments of 10 minutes and 20 minutes were compared and found to yield the same reliability and integrity results. Interrater reliability showed good-to-excellent results for each MITI item even with undergraduate raters. Correlations between items showed a coherent pattern of interitem correlations. The MITI is a good measure of treatment integrity for MI and seems superior to existing measures when indicators of client behavior are not needed.

Counseling↗
PubMed2006

Increasing willingness to experience obsessions: acceptance and commitment therapy as a treatment for obsessive-compulsive disorder.

This study evaluated the effectiveness of an 8-session Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for OCD intervention in a nonconcurrent multiple-baseline, across-participants design. Results on self-reported compulsions showed that the intervention produced clinically significant reductions in compulsions by the end of treatment for all participants, with results maintained at 3-month follow-up. Self-monitoring was supported with similar decreases in scores on standardized measures of OCD. Positive changes in anxiety and depression were found for all participants as well as expected process changes in the form of decreased experiential avoidance, believability of obsessions, and need to respond to obsessions. All participants found the treatment to be highly acceptable. Implications and future directions are discussed.

Adult↗
PubMed2006

Acceptance and commitment therapy: model, processes and outcomes.

The present article presents and reviews the model of psychopathology and treatment underlying Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). ACT is unusual in that it is linked to a comprehensive active basic research program on the nature of human language and cognition (Relational Frame Theory), echoing back to an earlier era of behavior therapy in which clinical treatments were consciously based on basic behavioral principles. The evidence from correlational, component, process of change, and outcome comparisons relevant to the model are broadly supportive, but the literature is not mature and many questions have not yet been examined. What evidence is available suggests that ACT works through different processes than active treatment comparisons, including traditional Cognitive-Behavior Therapy (CBT). There are not enough well-controlled studies to conclude that ACT is generally more effective than other active treatments across the range of problems examined, but so far the data are promising.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy↗
PubMed2005

A preliminary investigation of acceptance and commitment therapy as a treatment for chronic skin picking.

The effectiveness of a deliberately limited version of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) for chronic skin picking was evaluated in a pair of multiple baseline across participants designs. Self-monitoring of skin picking showed that four of the five participants reached near zero levels of picking by post-treatment, but these gains were not fully maintained for three of the four participants at follow-up. The findings of the self-reported skin picking were generally corroborated by ratings of photographs of the damaged areas and by ratings on a validated measure of skin picking severity. All participants rated the intervention as socially acceptable, and reductions were found on measures of anxiety, depression, and experiential avoidance for most participants as a result of the intervention. Results support the construction of more comprehensive ACT protocols for skin picking.

Adult↗
PubMed2005

Eleven rules for a more successful clinical psychology.

The recommendations put forth in the target article, "Twenty-First Century Graduate Education in Clinical Psychology: A Four Level Matrix Model" (C.R. Snyder & T.R. Elliott, this issue, pp. 1033-1054), should be regarded in the context of the large need to develop a more progressive and effective discipline. No amount of "brute force" education and empiricism is certain to solve the problems of the scope of our field identified by the authors. Eleven rules are offered and defended that may lead to a more practically and empirically successful field.

Clinical Competence↗
PubMed2004

Taxonomy as a contextualist views it.

The Henriques' article, "Psychology Defined" (this issue), reflects an underlying philosophy of science that emphasizes coherence as its truth criterion. The taxonomic efforts that result are of unknown value when viewed from other philosophical positions. From the point of view of functional contextualism, the primary metric of successful science is not coherence per se, but the precision, scope, and depth of the analysis as a means of predicting and influencing psychological phenomena. Henriques presents neither data nor specific research proposals that would allow even the beginning application of such a metric. Thus, the proposed taxonomy has no known value when viewed contextualistically. Since the practical goals of clinical psychology are very similar to those of functional contextualism, clinical psychologists interested in making a practical difference will have few current empirical reasons to be attracted to this taxonomy.

Animals↗
PubMed2004

Cognitive defusion and self-relevant negative thoughts: examining the impact of a ninety year old technique.

Cognitive defusion techniques are designed to reduce the functions of thoughts by altering the context in which they occur, rather than the attempting to alter the form, frequency, or situational sensitivity of the thoughts themselves. Applied technologies designed to produce cognitive defusion seem to lead to reductions in the believability of negative thoughts, but defusion techniques are generally only parts of complex packages and the role of defusion techniques per se is note yet known. The present study examined the impact of a cognitive defusion technique first described by Titchener nearly 90 years ago: rapidly repeating a single word. In series of eight single-case alternating treatment designs, this defusion technique was compared to a distraction task, and to a thought control task on reductions in the discomfort and believability of self-relevant negative thoughts. The cognitive defusion technique reduced both discomfort and believability more so than the comparison approaches. Control studies showed that the effect was probably not due to demand characteristics.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2004

Relational operants: processes and implications: a response to Palmer's review of Relational Frame Theory.

Palmer has recently criticized Relational Frame Theory (RFT) on the grounds that it has developed data in search of a principle. In this reply, we show that he has done so by attacking fundamental concepts within behavior analysis itself, including the functional nature of an operant and contingencies of reinforcement as a behavioral process. His claim that RFT appeals to new behavioral principles to explain the development of relational operants is shown to be incorrect: As with any operant, RFT appeals to a history of contacted consistencies in contingencies across multiple ex-emplars to explain them. New principles only emerge later as a logically necessary extension of such operants if they exist--a view that Palmer failed to address or appreciate. Palmer's desire to see the use of methods other than matching-to-sample is proper but already largely satisfied in the empirical literature on RFT. We show Palmer's defense of Skinner's definition of verbal behavior to be illogical and unresponsive to the empirical challenge behavior analysis faces. Palmer's alternative common sense mediational associationistic account is another in more than a century of such accounts, all of which have failed empirically. At its root, Palmer's criticism is based on a mechanistic philosophy that is hostile to a traditional functional behavior analytic approach.

Behavior↗
PubMed2002

Prescription privileges for psychologists: constituencies and conflicts.

The pros and cons of the proposal to link prescription privileges specifically to psychological training vary from the point of view of the constituencies involved. The present article analyzes those differences. Two surprising facts are noted. First, it is scientist-practitioners who are resisting the move toward prescription privileges, not so much the basic science organizations. Second, while the practice-based organizations have been avid in their support of prescription privileges, the same cannot be said for rank and file private practitioners. On closer examination, the costs, benefits, and views of the different constituencies make sense of these anomalies. The resistance to prescription privileges is not arbitrary or unreasonable and it is not likely to go away any time soon.

Drug Prescriptions↗
PubMed2002

The use of acceptance and commitment therapy to prevent the rehospitalization of psychotic patients: a randomized controlled trial.

The present study examined the impact of a brief version of an acceptance-based treatment (acceptance and commitment therapy; ACT) that teaches patients to accept unavoidable private events; to identify and focus on actions directed toward valued goals; and to defuse from odd cognition, just noticing thoughts rather than treating them as either true or false. Eighty inpatient participants with positive psychotic symptoms were randomly assigned to treatment as usual (TAU) or to 4 sessions of ACT plus TAU. ACT participants showed significantly higher symptom reporting and lower symptom believability and a rate of rehospitalization half that of TAU participants over a 4-month follow-up period. The same basic pattern of results was seen with all participant subgroups except delusional participants who denied symptoms.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Suitability of bupropion SR for nicotine-dependent smokers: problems in a practice setting.

BACKGROUND: Bupropion SR (Zyban) has been shown in randomized controlled trials to be an efficacious pharmacological aid for smoking cessation; however, recent reports have raised serious concerns about the breadth of its applicability without complications or contraindications. METHODS: We examined this issue in a well-documented medical population, i.e. veterans volunteering to participate in a smoking cessation treatment research program involving the use of bupropion SR. RESULTS: Overall, 22% of the 78 subjects who met the study criteria were appropriate for and completed the course of medication. CONCLUSIONS: Thus, bupropion SR in nicotine-dependent veterans may not be broadly applicable when conservative prescribing guidelines are carefully followed.

Adult↗