Videos of the American Psychological Association (APA): Home

Early attachment experiences with our primary caregivers shape the adults that we become. The goals of attachment-based psychotherapy are to address the limiting effects of negative early attachment experiences and to strengthen the capacity for secure relationships and adaptive actions in the world. To do this, the therapist first establishes a security-engendering therapeutic relationship with the patient and then within that relationship helps the client to elaborate and express the types of communications, emotions, perceptions, and behaviors that were defensively excluded in earlier, formative relationships with attachment figures. As a result, the client becomes better able to communicate openly and accurately and to access more adaptive feelings, thoughts, and behaviors in his or her own life. In this video, Dr. Peter C. Costello discusses the theoretical basis of attachment-based psychotherapy, and explores with a client the origins of her inability to communicate her needs and fears to those on whom she most depends.

Dr. Donald Meichenbaum uses cognitive-behavioral therapy with a constructive-narrative perspective in which he looks at the stories clients tell about themselves and considers ways that the client could develop a different, more positive story.

In EMDR for Trauma: Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, Dr. Francine Shapiro demonstrates her approach to working with clients still experiencing the effects of past traumatic experiences. EMDR is an integrative psychotherapy designated by the American Psychiatric Association as highly effective and empirically supported.

Emotion-focused therapy for trauma (EFTT) is an evidence-based, short-term, individual therapy for adult clients dealing with issues stemming from child abuse trauma. In this program, Dr. Sandra C. Paivio is featured in a clinical demonstration of EFTT, and further outlines its strategies for reprocessing trauma feelings and memories and working directly with emotional processes to bring about client change.

Dr. Jay Lebow explains his approach to therapy that uses the most appropriate generic strategies that can help clients achieve goals they have set for themselves. Includes an actual therapy session with a real family.

In this demonstration, Dr. Lillian Comas-Díaz works with an African American woman who is making a decision about dating a partner outside of her own culture. Dr. Comas-Díaz demonstrates cultural empathy in working with the client, discussing how this decision will impact the client's relationship with her family and how to preserve that relationship while remaining true to herself.

Dobson, Hays, and Wenzel examine the initial phase of treatment in cognitive behavioral therapy. Using clips from their own therapy sessions, the experts demonstrate how to effectively gather information to determine a diagnosis, how to foster the therapeutic alliance, and techniques for goal setting. Following each clip, the three discuss context of when the techniques might be used as well as variations which might be used in other contexts.

Dr. Judith V. Jordan demonstrates and discusses this increasingly practiced approach to therapy. Relational-cultural therapy is a theory of doing therapy, as well as a developmental theory, that works on connection and disconnection in a client's life. A person's past relationships positively and negatively influence expectations--or relational images--of future relationships. People become disconnected from each other primarily because of negative relational images, and the therapist's job is to loosen the hold these negative images have on the client's present life.

Dr. Judith V. Jordan demonstrates and discusses this increasingly practiced approach to therapy. Relational-cultural therapy is a theory of doing therapy, as well as a developmental theory, that works on connection and disconnection in a client's life. A person's past relationships positively and negatively influence expectations--or relational images--of future relationships. People become disconnected from each other primarily because of negative relational images, and the therapist's job is to loosen the hold these negative images have on the client's present life and help the client become more connected with others.