Social Work Commons^™

Differences In Resilience And Mental Health Symptoms Among Us First Responders With Secure And Insecure Attachment, Donna Schuman, James Whitworth, Jeanine Galusha, Jose Carbajal, Warren Ponder, Kathryn Shahan, Katelyn Jetelina

Faculty Publications

Objective: This observational study aimed to determine whether attachment style predicted first responders' mental health and resilience. Method: Data were from a treatment-seeking sample of first responders (N = 237). Each participant completed six assessments measuring attachment, resilience, generalized anxiety, depression, suicidality, and posttraumatic stress disorder. Results: On the attachment assessment, 25.3%were categorized as secure, 19.0%as dismissive, 25.3% as preoccupied, and 30.4% as fearfully attached. As predicted, securely attached participants had the lowest scores for generalized anxiety, depression, suicidality, and posttraumatic stress disorder and the highest scores on the resiliency measure, followed by dismissive, preoccupied, and fearfully …

Affective Depression Mediates Ptsd To Suicide In A Sample Of Treatment-Seeking First Responders, James Whitworth, Jeanine Galusha, Jose Carbajal, Warren Ponder, Donna Schuman

Faculty Publications

Objective: The aim of this study was to examine the associations of comorbid

posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), affective or somatic depression, and

suicide among first responders (FRs). Method: We used baseline data from

FRs (N = 232) who sought services at a nonprofit mental health agency specializing

in treating trauma exposed FRs. We conducted two PROCESS simple

mediation models with PTSD as the predictor, affective depression and somatic

depression as the mediators, and suicidality as the dependent variable.

Results: Affective depression significantly mediated the relationship between

PTSD and suicidality, whereas somatic depression did not. The direct effect …

Validation Of The Pcl-5, Phq-9, And Gad-7 In A Sample Of Veterans, Aazi Ahmadi, Warren Ponder, Jose Carbajal, Donna Schuman, James Whitworth, R Andrew Yockey, Jeanine Galusha

Faculty Publications

Objective: Veterans can present at nongovernment (Department of Defense, Department of Veterans Affairs) mental health agencies with complex symptom constellations that frequently include posttraumatic stress disorder, depression, and generalized anxiety. To date, no veteran study has validated these measures on a treatment-seeking sample of veterans outside the DoD and VA. Methods: We used a treatment-seeking sample of veterans (N = 493) to validate measures that assess these constructs (PTSD Checklist 5, Patient Health Questionnaire-9, and Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7). Results: The seven-factor posttraumatic stress disorder hybrid configuration was the best fit. The best fitting model of the depression …

Social Work Trauma Interventions: Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, Kassie Baumann

Senior Honors Theses

According to Lynne Weilart (2013), in her article on the reasons why people seek out therapy, trauma is the number one reason people attend counseling. Many different trauma-informed approaches are designed specifically to address the consequences of trauma and to facilitate healing. Some of these approaches are as follows: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT); Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT);Mentalization Based Therapy (MBT); Trauma Systems Therapy (TST); Trauma Assessment Pathway (TAP); and Attachment, Self-Regulation, and Competency (ARC) (de Arellano, Danielson, Ko, & Sprauge, 2008). The effectiveness of each trauma intervention will be examined. DBT is one of these trauma interventions that is growing …

Young Adults In Transition: Factors That Support And Hinder Growth And Change, Mona Treadway

Antioch University Full-Text Dissertations & Theses

Young adults between 18 and 24 years of age with mental illness are significantly less likely to receive mental health services than adults in older age groups.Nationally, higher rates of depression, substance abuse, and psychiatric issues are reported in this age group.A therapeutic model referred to as young adult transition programs has emerged to better address the unique developmental challenges found in this age group.This study examined 317 critical incidents that supported or hindered young adults in a therapeutic transition program.The research design used a combination of an instrumental case study and critical incident technique (CIT).Using interviews and the Outcome …

Cognitive And Psychodynamic Mechanisms Of Change In Treated And Untreated Depression, Daniel Coleman, Diane Cole, Leslie Wuest

Faculty Publications - College of Social Work

Two patient-level mechanisms of change, defenses, and cognition were tested over 3 time points in 65 depressed adults, approximately half receiving treatment. Early changes in automatic thoughts and immature defenses were associated with symptom change from time-one to time-three. The directionality of early automatic thought change predicting symptom change was partially supported, but immature defense change occurs simultaneously with, or after, symptom change. Given the convergent evidence of cognitive change as a mediator of depression reduction, all depression therapies should consider how they address depressive cognition. To build a more complete understanding of how to ameliorate depression, future studies should …

Short-Term Versus Long-Term Group Work With Female Survivors Of Childhood Sexual Abuse: A Brief Meta-Analytic Review, Tanya L. De Jong, Kevin M. Gorey

Social Work Publications

This meta-analytic review synthesizes the findings of seven published independent studies dealing with group work with female survivors of childhood sexual abuse, and compares the effectiveness of short-term versus long-term methods. Across-study summative findings were: (1) generally, group work has large beneficial effects upon female survivors' affect and self-esteem-three-quarters of the group participants improve; (2) no extant empirical evidence supports the differential effectiveness of either short-term or long-term groups; and (3) only one study to date has reported the size of long-term methods' clinical effect. In short, the question of the differential effectiveness of short- versus long-term group work with …

Group Work As Interventive Modality With The Older Depressed Client: A Meta-Analytic Review, Kevin M. Gorey, Arthur G. Cryns

Social Work Publications

This review analyzes a total of 19 empirical studies dealing with the effectiveness of group work intervention with depressed older clients (65 years and older). Multiple analyses of all outcome data reported allowed for the following summative, empirically derived inferences: (1) overall, group work was found to account for 42% positive change in client affective states; however, most of this improvement (87%) appears to be attributable to nonspecific interventive variables, i.e., factors outside the control and intent of the group worker; (2) group work is optimally effective for clients who live alone and are moderately to severely depressed; (3) client …