Addressing health in psychotherapy: Future directions from a community wellness lens.

Abstract

Building off insight provided by authors in this special section and in the broader literature, this closing article describes future directions in health in psychotherapy. We use the community wellness model (CWM; Prilleltensky, 2005) sites of personal, relational, and collective to highlight psychotherapy constructs that offer future directions for more fully embracing a community and social justice perspective in health in psychotherapy. Within each level, we describe implications for researchers and clinicians: the personal level focuses on individual psychotherapy, including theoretical orientation, interventions, and feedback-informed treatment; the relational level covers clinician-client dynamics and group psychotherapy; the collective level addresses the scope and innovation of our interventions as well as advocacy efforts. Our hope is that these psychotherapy constructs and processes offer researchers and clinicians future directions for more fully integrating health into psychotherapy in a way that embeds a social justice perspective. Clinical Impact StatementQuestions: What are relevant psychotherapy constructs and processes for addressing health in psychotherapy? How is health in psychotherapy relevant at the personal, relational, and collective levels of the community wellness model (CWM; Prilleltensky, 2005)? Findings: Psychotherapy constructs and processes relevant to the future of health in psychotherapy include, but are not limited to, theoretical orientation, individual psychotherapy processes and interventions, group psychotherapy processes and interventions, clinician-client dynamics, the scope and innovation of our interventions, and advocacy efforts. Meaning: Using the CWM (Prilleltensky, 2005), we describe psychotherapy constructs and processes relevant to the future of health in psychotherapy at the personal, relational, and collective levels. Next Steps: Psychotherapy researchers and clinicians must consider the ways in which a holistic conceptualization of health more fully embraces community and social justice perspectives in their work.