Grossman-Giron Ariella, Becker Gideon, Kivity Yogev, Shalev Shani, Tzur Bitan Dana
Department of Behavioral Sciences, Ariel University, Ariel, Israel.
Shalvata Mental Health Center, Affiliated with the Sackler School of Medicine, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel.
J Clin Psychol. 2021 Jun;77(6):1296-1306. doi: 10.1002/jclp.23085. Epub 2020 Nov 6.
The extensive reliance on symptoms for the study of psychotherapy is often criticized. In this study we examined whether the subjective sense of mental pain predicts psychotherapy process and outcome, above and beyond the effect of symptomatic distress.
Outpatients (n = 53) treated in a psychiatric hospital completed measures of mental pain intensity and tolerance, symptomatic distress, and session climate at pretreatment and posttreatment. Multilevel modeling was utilized to assess the predictive effect of mental pain, while controlling baseline symptomatic distress.
Patients with high mental pain at baseline showed significant reductions in distress, while patients with low mental pain showed no significant improvement. Moreover, low mental pain and high mental pain tolerance predicted decreases in session smoothness.
Mental pain can serve as a predictive marker for psychotherapy process and outcome, and complement the reliance on symptomatic distress in psychotherapy research.
在心理治疗研究中，对症状的广泛依赖常遭批评。在本研究中，我们考察了心理痛苦的主观感受是否能在症状性痛苦的影响之外，预测心理治疗的过程和结果。
一家精神病医院的门诊患者（n = 53）在治疗前和治疗后完成了心理痛苦强度和耐受性、症状性痛苦以及治疗 session 氛围的测量。采用多层模型评估心理痛苦的预测效果，同时控制基线症状性痛苦。
基线时心理痛苦程度高的患者痛苦显著减轻，而心理痛苦程度低的患者无显著改善。此外，心理痛苦程度低和心理痛苦耐受性高预测了治疗 session 流畅性的降低。
心理痛苦可作为心理治疗过程和结果的预测指标，并补充心理治疗研究中对症状性痛苦的依赖。
