Integrating Psychotherapy and Psychophysiology: Theory, Assessment, and Practice

In recent years there has been growing interest in exploring how psychophysiology can be used to enhance psychotherapeutic interventions, and it is becoming more common for psychotherapists to use psychophysiological approaches such as biofeedback as a part of their therapy.

Integrating Psychotherapy and Psychophysiology explores how these fields can be integrated to improve therapy outcomes, and to provide a guide to professionals in the field.

Structured in three parts, the first part focuses on theories underlying psychotherapy/psychophysiology integration with chapters on the neuroscience of mind, evolution and compassion, heart rate variability and mind/body integration, and affect and understanding the world. The second part focuses on assessment aspects of psychotherapy/ psychophysiology integration with chapters on the NIH Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) approach to assessment of psychopathology from a psychophysiological perspective, personality as a central factor in stress and cardiovascular reactivity and using the RDoC framework to understand and conceptualize personality. Finally, the third part focuses on approaches to integrating psychophysiology into psychotherapy, emphasizing heart rate variability biofeedback.

The book will be valuable for all psychotherapists who are looking to improve their practice by integrating effective mind/body principles into their therapeutic approach.

Patrick Steffen, Brigham Young University, Donald Moss, Saybrook University

Patrick R. Steffen, PhD, is a Professor of Psychology at Brigham Young University where he has served as the Director of Clinical Training and as an Alcuin Fellow in the Honors Program. He received his PhD in Clinical Health Psychology from the University of Miami and was a post-doctoral fellow in cardiovascular behavioral medicine at Duke University Medical Center. He is a Fellow of the Association for Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback and is a past president of that organization and serves as Associate Editor for the journal Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback. His research interests are in behavioral medicine and integrating biofeedback approaches into psychotherapy.

Dr. Donald Moss is Professor and Dean, College of Integrative Medicine and Health Sciences, at Saybrook University, Pasadena, CA. He is a clinical health psychologist, certified in biofeedback and hypnosis. Moss is the ethics chair for the Biofeedback Certification International Alliance. He is the education chair, publications chair, and president-elect for the Society for Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis (SCEH). He previously served as president of SCEH, president of Division 30 (hypnosis) of the American Psychological Association, and president of AAPB.