Patients Believe in Psychotherapy More When Practitioners Demonstrate Warmth and Competence 

Therapy is a collaborative process informed not just by a practitioner’s expertise but also by the patient’s expectations about that expertise and how likely they are to benefit from it. Research in Clinical Psychological Science suggests that therapists who demonstrate both warmth and competence can shape those expectations by inspiring more positive beliefs about the effectiveness of therapy.

Improving treatment for psychogenic seizures: “This is a group of patients that we are taking less seriously”

Journal prize winner Benjamin Tolchin tested motivational interviewing to help people with psychogenic non-epileptic seizures (PNES) start and continue psychotherapy. Often mistaken for epilepsy, these seizures cause serious problems, yet many health care professionals discount them as “not real.”