Brewer Judson A, Giommi Fabio
Department of Behavioral and Social Sciences, School of Public Health, Brown University, Providence, RI, United States.
Department of Psychiatry, Warren Alpert Medical School at Brown University, Providence, RI, United States.
Front Psychol. 2025 Jul 23;16:1603719. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1603719. eCollection 2025.
Psychotherapy training and practice have grown increasingly complex, driven by expanding diagnostic frameworks, theoretical models, and intervention methods. This complexity can at best confuse and at worst overwhelm therapists, limiting therapeutic effectiveness and obscuring the relational core that is crucial to successful therapy. In this paper, we explore a different path than increasing complexity: simplicity. Specifically, drawing on recent insights from psychotherapy research and neuroscience, we highlight the intimate connection between simplicity and curiosity and how different types of curiosity can be operationalized in the therapeutic setting. We also explore how curiosity interacts with generative models or narratives that patients (and therapists) can be overidentified with, leading to confirmation bias. Also, we highlight how curiosity and simplicity can mutually foster each other in the therapeutic relationship, co-emerging as a strong driving factor for therapeutic insight and change. Further, we explore the relationship between curiosity and interoceptive awareness, which can be operationally enhanced by embodied practices (e.g., mindfulness, meditation etc.). Ultimately, rather than the accumulation of knowledge, psychotherapy that centers on curiosity empowers clients toward exploration and adaptive flexibility to foster autonomy and insight, while potentially protecting psychotherapists from stagnation, fostering continued personal and professional growth.
心理治疗的培训与实践日益复杂,这是由不断扩展的诊断框架、理论模型和干预方法所驱动的。这种复杂性往轻了说会让治疗师感到困惑,往重了说会使其不堪重负,限制治疗效果,并模糊对成功治疗至关重要的关系核心。在本文中,我们探索一条与增加复杂性不同的道路:简单性。具体而言,借鉴心理治疗研究和神经科学的最新见解,我们强调简单性与好奇心之间的紧密联系,以及不同类型的好奇心如何在治疗环境中得以实施。我们还探讨好奇心如何与患者(及治疗师)可能过度认同的生成模型或叙事相互作用,从而导致确认偏差。此外,我们强调好奇心和简单性如何在治疗关系中相互促进,共同成为治疗洞察力和改变的强大驱动因素。再者,我们探索好奇心与内感受性觉知之间的关系,内感受性觉知可通过身体实践(如正念、冥想等)在操作上得到增强。最终,以好奇心为中心的心理治疗并非知识的积累,而是赋予来访者探索的能力和适应性灵活性,以促进自主性和洞察力,同时可能保护心理治疗师免于停滞,促进其个人和职业的持续成长。
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