Self-system therapy (SST) is a new therapy based on regulatory focus theory (E. T. Higgins, 1997) for depressed individuals unable to pursue promotion goals effectively. The authors conducted a randomized trial comparing SST with cognitive therapy (CT) in a sample of 45 patients with a range of depressive symptoms to test 2 hypotheses: that SST would be more efficacious for depressed individuals characterized by inadequate socialization toward pursuing promotion goals and that SST would lead to greater reduction in dysphoric responses to priming of promotion goals. There was no overall difference in efficacy between treatments, but patients whose socialization history lacked an emphasis on promotion goals showed significantly greater improvement with SST. In addition, SST patients showed a greater reduction in dysphoric responses to promotion goal priming than did CT patients. The results illustrate the value of a theory-based translational approach to treatment design and selection.

This article introduces Self‐System Therapy (SST), a brief, structured psychotherapy for the treatment of depression. SST conceptualizes depression as a failure of self‐regulation and is intended for individuals whose depression and/or premorbid functioning are characterized by particular problems in self‐regulation. This article provides an overview of SST, including its origins in basic and clinical research on self‐discrepancy theory and self‐regulation, the hypothesized etiological role of self‐regulation in depression, the primary components of the treatment, and comparisons of SST with other psycho‐therapies for depression. The general structure of a course of treatment with SST is outlined, and a case example is presented to illustrate the goals and strategies of each phase.

We examined patterns of perfectionism among college students and their biological parents in a sample of 188 undergraduates from intact families. Ratings (self vs. other) showed the greatest degree of convergence when daughters were either the target or the rater. Levels of self-oriented perfectionism in students were positively associated with the levels characterizing the same-sex parent, but unrelated (father-daughter) or negatively related (mother-son) to the levels characterizing the opposite-sex parent. Finally, parents' other-oriented perfectionism was not significantly related to students' socially prescribed perfectionism.

This study used individual growth modeling to examine individual difference and group difference models of adaptation. The adaptation of 27 children with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis (JRA) and 40 children with insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (IDDM) was tracked for 18 months from diagnosis. A control group of 62 healthy children was followed over the same time period. Clustering procedures indicated that child and family adaptation could be described by a number of distinct adaptation trajectories, independent of diagnostic group membership. In contrast, parental adaptation trajectory was associated with diagnostic group membership and control over disease activity for the JRA group and with diagnostic group membership for healthy controls. The observation of common patterns across trajectory sets, as well as the finding that trajectories were differentially related to a number of variables of interest, support the use of trajectories to represent adaptation to chronic disease.

This article introduces Self-System Therapy (SST), a brief, structured psychotherapy for the treatment of depression. SST conceptualizes depression as a failure of selfregulation and is intended for individuals whose depression and/or premorbid functioning are characterized by particular problems in self-regulation. This article provides an overview of SST, including its origins in basic and clinical research on self-discrepancy theory and self-regulation, the hypothesized etiological role of selfregulation in depression, the primary components of the treatment, and comparisons of SST with other psychotherapies for depression. The general structure of a course of treatment with SST is outlined, and a case example is presented to illustrate the goals and strategies of each phase.