Thomas W. Baskin

Does Youth Psychotherapy Improve Academically Related Outcomes? A Meta-Analysis.

To better understand the impact of psychotherapy on youth academic performance, the authors located and examined 83 studies of youth psychotherapy that contained 102 treatment comparisons. Results revealed a d = 0.46 overall effect size, with a d = 0.50 effect size for mental health outcomes, and a d = 0.38 effect size for academically related outcomes. Academically related outcomes were further categorized into teacher-rated classroom behavior (d = 0.26), academic achievement (d = 0.36), environmentally related outcomes (d = 0.26), and self-reported academically related outcomes (d = 0.59). Each of these effect sizes differed significantly from zero, and the 4 academically related categories were homogeneous. Participant racial and ethnic diversity and age were explored as moderators. The results point to psychotherapy benefiting student academics, regardless of age. Ethnically diverse participant groups in the studies fared better academically than did nondiverse groups. Implications discussed include counseling psychologists maintaining a holistic view of youth and of working more closely with educators.

Efficacy of Counseling and Psychotherapy in Schools: A Meta-Analytic Review of Treatment Outcome Studies

This study investigated the efficacy of counseling and psychotherapy interventions for youth in schools. Data were examined for 107 studies that included 132 treatment interventions. Overall efficacy was d = 0.45 and was significantly different from zero. Interventions for adolescents outperformed those of children, treatment groups that were predominately female or male did better than mixed-gender groups, and licensed professional therapists outperformed paraprofessionals, who outperformed graduate students. Implications for supporting the mental health needs of youth in schools are discussed.

Belongingness as a Protective Factor Against Loneliness and Potential Depression in a Multicultural Middle School

This study examines belongingness as a strengths-based protective factor. Belongingness is investigated in relationship to the threat of low peer acceptance for loneliness and of high loneliness for depression in adolescents. Data were collected from peers for adolescents’ peer acceptance and from adolescents themselves for other variables. Ratings of peers and self-reported survey data were analyzed together from data collected from 294 eighth-grade students from a culturally and ethnically diverse school. Results indicated belongingness was a significant moderator of the influence of peer acceptance on loneliness and of loneliness on depression. This suggests that belongingness is a potentially important buffer against the negative effects of low peer acceptance and high loneliness. Implications for counseling psychologists working with ethnically diverse adolescents are discussed.

Examining the Impact of Peer and Family Belongingness on the Career Decision-making Difficulties of Young Adults: A Path Analytic Approach

Career decision making continues to be a major area of research, particularly related to the factors that influence the construct. The purpose of this study was to examine a hypothesized model predicting the relationships between career decision-making difficulties and perceived belongingness, specifically peer and family belongingness. Participants included 436 undergraduates, who completed measures of belongingness, psychological distress, academic motivation, and career decision-making difficulties. The researchers conjectured that peer and family belongingness would each be indirectly associated with career decision-making difficulties as mediated by academic motivation and psychological distress. Overall, fit indices supported the hypothesized model but indicated different outcomes for family and peer belongingness. Family belongingness was significantly related to career decision-making difficulties, while peer belonging was not significantly associated to any variable in the hypothesized model. Practical implications are discussed, along with suggestions for future research.

Supporting Special-Needs Adoptive Couples Assessing an Intervention to Enhance Forgiveness, Increase Marital Satisfaction, and Prevent Depression

An educational group intervention focusing on forgiveness and marriage education was implemented with adoptive parents. Couples qualified by having adopted at least one special-needs child. Data were examined for 112 adoptive parents: 54 from a treatment group that immediately received a 36–contact hour intervention and 58 from a waiting list comparison group that received the intervention after the treatment group was completed. Forgiveness, marital satisfaction, and depressive symptoms were measured in both groups. The treatment group showed statistically significant gains on all three dependent measures vis-à-vis the comparison group. The comparison group showed similar gains when they became the treatment group. All gains were maintained at a 3.5-month follow-up (one semester). Implications are discussed for the effectiveness and appropriateness of this intervention for special-needs adoptive families.

Contextual School Counseling Approach Linking Contextual Psychotherapy With the School Environment

This article, and the one that follows (Slaten & Baskin, Contextual School Counseling: u2009A framework for training with implications for curriculum, supervision, practice, and future research), describe an approach to school counseling and an integrated new training framework, titled “Contextual School Counseling” (CSC). CSC is an approach where the contextual perspective of psychotherapy is understood, relied upon, and applied to activities by a counselor within the school environment. The use of CSC will help school counselors to focus on vulnerable and diverse populations. Furthermore, it will add cohesion to an ever-evolving profession whose members are currently trained in core counseling skills but would likely further benefit from an approach and training model with clearer links to the pre-K-12 context.

Contextual School Counseling A Framework for Training With Implications for Curriculum, Supervision, Practice, and Future Research

The current article provides a framework for training professional school counselors based on contextual school counseling (CSC). This framework includes a competency-based approach to training using the clusters identified by the Council of Counseling Psychology Training Programs (CCPTP) working group on master’s-level professional psychology training—professionalism, relational, science, application, and systems. Foundational competencies for school counselors are proposed under each cluster, and the differences between clinical mental health competencies and school counseling competencies are emphasized and discussed. The proposed framework is followed by implications for counseling psychologists and counselor educators who train school counselors, and include supervision of school counselors-in-training, curriculum needs for school counselors-in-training, practice for school counselors, and suggestions for related future research.

Group Hypnotizability Of Inpatient Adolescents

Abstract This study investigated group hypnotizability in 167 adolescents (ages 13-17) in an inpatient behavioral healthcare setting through use of the Waterloo-Stanford Group Scale, Form C. It also investigated the influence of hypnotic inductions on group hypnotizability. Adolescents were randomly assigned to either a group session of hypnosis (n = 84) with a hypnotic induction or a comparison “no-induction” group (n = 83) that received identical suggestions without a hypnotic induction. Adolescents’ imaginative absorption and dissociation were measured to examine their influence on hypnotizability. A between-group comparison showed the induction condition had a significantly higher score than the no-induction group on both behavioral and subjective measures of hypnotizability.