Personal growth initiative (PGI), an individual's active and intentional engagement in the growth process, was originally developed as a potentially useful construct in therapy. Although it has repeatedly been related to psychological well-being and distress, few studies have examined PGI in clinical samples. The current study investigated the role of PGI in a sample of 295 clients at a community-serving training clinic. Data were collected at two time points. Confirmatory factor analyses supported a second-order model with four first-order PGI factors: Readiness for Change, Planfulness, Using Resources, and Intentional Behavior. Using cross-lagged panel analysis, PGI at Time 1 was found to predict psychological distress endorsed at Time 2 after accounting for distress at Time 1.

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The current study sought to assess the acceptability and feasibility of a compassion-focused therapy (CFT) group as an adjunct to evidence-based outpatient treatment for eating disorders, and to examine its preliminary efficacy relative to treatment as usual (TAU). Twenty-two outpatients with various types of eating disorders were randomly assigned to 12 weeks of TAU (n = 11) or TAU plus weekly CFT groups adapted for an eating disorder population (CFT + TAU; n = 11). Participants in both conditions completed measures of self-compassion, fears of compassion, shame and eating disorder pathology at baseline, week 4, week 8 and week 12. Additionally, participants receiving the CFT group completed measures assessing acceptability and feasibility of the group. Results indicated that the CFT group demonstrated strong acceptability; attendance was high and the group retained over 80% of participants. Participants rated the group positively and indicated they would be very likely to recommend it to peers with similar symptoms. Intention-to-treat analyses revealed that compared to the TAU condition, the CFT + TAU condition yielded greater improvements in self-compassion, fears of self-compassion, fears of receiving compassion, shame and eating disorder pathology over the 12 weeks. Results suggest that group-based CFT, offered in conjunction with evidence-based outpatient TAU for eating disorders, may be an acceptable, feasible and efficacious intervention. Furthermore, eating disorder patients appear to see benefit in, and observe gains from, working on the CFT goals of overcoming fears of compassion, developing more self-compassion and accessing more compassion from others. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Training in counseling psychology boasts a distinguished history, but not much longitudinal research on its broad parameters. This study tracked doctoral training in APA-accredited counseling psychology across 20 years in terms of program, student, and faculty characteristics. At each interval, more than 95% of the programs participated. Temporal changes include the emergence of PsyD counseling programs, a gradual decline in the average number of applicants, and pronounced increases in the percentage of women and ethnic minority students. Faculty theoretical orientations remained consistent; about 45% cognitive-behavioral, 30% existential/humanistic, 22% systems, and 20% psychodynamic. Programs' respective placement along the practice-research continuum (practice oriented, equal emphasis, research oriented) replicated findings that the "model does matter" concerning admission requirements and financial assistance. Comparisons between counseling psychology PhD programs (n ϭ 54) and clinical psychology PhD programs (n ϭ 169) indicated proportionally more behavioral and cognitive orientations among clinical faculty and more psychodynamic and humanistic orientations among counseling faculty. Clinical programs featured more student applications and higher Graduate Record Examination (GRE) scores, whereas counseling programs reported proportionally more ethnic minority students. These findings can guide graduate programs, potential applicants, and academic advisors in accurately portraying the multiple training options for health-service psychology. Public Significance StatementGraduate training profoundly impacts the activities and interests of mental health professionals. This study identifies training trends in counseling psychology and compares them with clinical psychology. The results can inform potential clinicians, academic advisors, and the general public about the characteristics and practices of psychologists.

Personal growth initiative has been shown to be an important predictor of psychological health. It is currently measured by the Personal Growth Initiative Scale-II (PGIS-II), which consists of 4 interrelated factors. Past research across various samples has consistently selected the 4-factor model as the best fit for the data compared to single-factor and second-order models. However, its fit has typically been adequate (not strong), and, to date, no research has examined alternate factor structures, such as a bifactor solution. The current study examined 4 theoretically informed potential models-single-factor, 4-factor, second-order 4 factor, and bifactor-across 3 samples drawn from different populations: 223 college students, 307 Mechanical Turk participants, and 281 clinical therapy clients. Across all 3 samples, the bifactor model was the best fit for the data, and tests of multigroup invariance indicated this model was invariant through the scalar level. Finally, analyses of the explained common variance and percentage of uncontaminated correlations indicated that the PGIS-II can be appropriately modeled unidimensionally. (PsycINFO Database Record