鈥淭he take home message is that autism research here at 91亚色 isn鈥檛 just one thing,鈥� psychology Professor Jonathan Weiss, chair of the 91亚色 Autism Research Alliance (YARA)聽in the Faculty of Health, told the audience. 鈥淲e want you to have a picture as you walk away from today聽of the breadth聽at which different faculty members with different areas of expertise are doing research.鈥�

Left: Dorota Crawford (standing, left) and Jonathan Weiss answering questions from the audience

YARA聽is an interdisciplinary team of researchers at 91亚色 that has been in existence for about two years. This was the first time it has reached out to聽a large range of聽community service providers as a group. The event was sponsored by .

鈥淭he goal was to provide an overview of the incredible range of autism research at 91亚色 and reach out to service providers and start a conversation with them,鈥� said Weiss. 鈥淚t鈥檚 really about knowledge exchange. This was the first step in that exchange, and they can let us know what they are interested in. Rather than a one way street, it breaks down the academic silos.鈥�

Weiss has just finished two pilot projects using聽cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) with people with ASD 鈥� one used聽CBT to help reduce anxiety and the other used it聽to help build anger management skills. Weiss wants to know if the interventions that already exist can be adapted to help children with ASD, who also suffer from things like anxiety and aggression.

Right: Kari Hoffman explains her research at the inaugural showcase of the 91亚色 Autism Research Alliance

But that鈥檚 not all; he is also interested in knowing whether the level of health care and access to service for families with a teenager or adult with ASD is lacking in various parts of the province, what health care services they need and their experience of the system, and has embarked on a study to find out.

Dorota Crawford, a professor in 91亚色鈥檚 School of Kinesiology & Health Science, told the gathering she is researching whether genes or the environment are responsible for ASD. One of the things she is doing is trying to identify the genes responsible for specific symptoms of ASD and determine how they affect brain function. She has so far recruited 20 families with a child with ASD to give genetic material samples through a mouth swab to be able to compare genes. She is hoping her research will lead to an earlier diagnosis (before the age of two), earlier intervention and development of specific pharmaceuticals.

鈥淭he incidence of autism in the last three decades has increased dramatically,鈥� she said. In 1977, only one in 2,500 people were diagnosed with ASD, while in 2009 one in 106 people were diagnosed. Of those being diagnosed, males are four times as likely as females to have ASD.

Left: From left, Jonathan Weiss, Adrienne Perry, James Bebko, Dorota Crawford, Jennifer Steeves, Maz Fallah, Louise Hartley, director of the 91亚色 Psychology Clinic, and Tania Xerri, director of the Health Leadership & Learning Network

Psychology Professor Kari Hoffman told the audience about her work with social and emotional processing, the destination points for processing and the routes taken, which may be different in people with ASD than in a typical person.

School of Kinesiology & Health Science Professor Maz Fallah is interested in what things people with ASD pay attention to that may differ from others, what is the reason for that and what interventions could help. People who have an ASD have a persistent preoccupation with parts. 鈥淭hey cannot see the forest for the trees,鈥� says Fallah, and that might have to do with an object-based attention deficit, for instance.

As psychology Professor Jennifer Steeves says, 鈥淭here鈥檚 a lot we take for granted when we look around the room, but there鈥檚 a lot of computations that are taking place in the brain.鈥�

This plays into what psychology Professor James Bebko is researching. Children with ASD don鈥檛 seem to be able to combine visual and auditory cues into a single unit, which is needed to assess emotion when watching and listening to someone talking. Their sensory systems seem largely intact, he said, so it may be that the problem lies in the processing or the transitional skills needed before the processing occurs.

What psychology Professor Adrienne Perry is looking into is the effectiveness of Intensive Behavioural Intervention (IBI), the program of choice for treating children with ASD. But Perry says the results in the field are variable compared to those in a controlled situation and she wants to know why. She is looking at the predictors of how well IBI works, such as age, IQ and severity of autism, as well as parent involvement.

鈥淚t鈥檚 great to see that research is going to look at family stress and at the IBI. We really struggle in the community to know what to do,鈥� said Penny Diamantopoulos, a case manager with the child and family team of the (Central CCAC).

Dawn Ullman, also a case manager at Central CCAC, says she hopes the alliance does some follow up with the community in the next year or so. She would like to know what the results are of some of the research the professors highlighted. 鈥淚 really want to know the bottom line鈥� as the person working with the families.

For more information, visit the 91亚色 Autism Research Alliance website.

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鈥淚n order to have a successful relationship, you really need to be able to give of yourself 鈥� to go outside your own needs, wants and viewpoints,鈥� says David Reid, a clinical psychologist and professor in the Department of Psychology in 91亚色's聽Faculty of Health.

Right: A Victorian Valentine's Day card. Image: Wikimedia Commons.

鈥淚t sounds obvious, but I see so many clients who cannot put themselves in their partner鈥檚 shoes. Either they aren鈥檛 used to thinking in terms of the point of view of their spouse, or they simple refuse to,鈥� he says. 鈥淭his doesn鈥檛 mean you cave in to everything your partner wants. Rather, you learn to be more intuitive and emotionally sensitive towards your spouse. When this is done reciprocally it can create a very positive symbiotic shift in a relationship,鈥� he says.

Reid has studied and documented the dynamics between couples for more than 15 years. He developed a new type of therapy that helps partners create a greater identity for themselves within their relationship, so much so that they begin to talk as if the relationship is part of their individual identities.

鈥淵ou鈥檙e changing the relationship in ways that draw the partners into feeling and thinking of themselves as part of the relationship,鈥� says Reid. 鈥淎t its best, a relationship can actually allow you to express your identity and get to know yourself in ways you never thought possible,鈥� he says.

His most recent research shows that as a result of participating in couples鈥� therapy, partners become significantly better at inferring what the other is thinking and feeling 鈥� the cornerstone of a healthy relationship.

With couples鈥� consent, Reid videotaped therapy sessions and then painstakingly studied how each set of partners related to one another. 聽He designed techniques that accommodate the uniqueness of each partner and their relationship, including their respective personalities and added factors such as culture, family dynamics, and other challenges like medical problems.

Reid revisited the couples two years later to document how their relationships had progressed, using an unbiased interviewer. He repeatedly found that couples鈥� satisfaction was connected to how well they had learned to identify with their relationship as a result of the therapeutic intervention.

鈥淚t鈥檚 as if they learn to be their own therapists,鈥� Reid says. 鈥淲hen you improve the relationship in ways that accommodate the idiosyncrasies of each partner, often the original issues that you argued about either dissolve, or are really quite easy for the couple to solve themselves,鈥� he says.

Part of his therapeutic process involved interviewing a partner who agreed to pretend to be their spouse, attempting to answer questions from their partner鈥檚 viewpoint. Their spouse sat out of sight, and was later interviewed in the same manner.

鈥淭here鈥檚 a big impact witnessing one鈥檚 partner knowing you so well,鈥� Reid says. 鈥淚n doing this exercise, a husband may find that he knows more about his wife than he鈥檚 aware of, and vice versa.鈥�

Reid offers the following tips for couples to strengthen their relationship:

• Put your own issues aside and respectfully engage the point of view of your spouse. If you can鈥檛 solve the problem, maybe you鈥檙e part of it.
• Pay attention to your intuitions. Be honest with yourself. Do you feel something isn鈥檛 right? There鈥檚 a bias in our world to think you can solve every problem with reason.
• Learn to listen honestly 鈥� not to win a point. Communication is based on feedback. Listen to understand your partner鈥檚 meaning, rather than just the words they are using.
• Try to accept each other. That includes accepting yourself; no one is perfect. Acceptance can go a long way towards resolving differences.
• When you鈥檙e having a major disagreement, remember to also speak for the relationship and not just yourself. In those moments of discord think of what would be best for the relationship. Research has found that partners in a well-functioning relationship have learned to make the relationship the bigger priority.
• Quit naysaying. Phrases like 鈥淚 can鈥檛,鈥� 鈥渢hat won鈥檛 work,鈥� 鈥渨e can鈥檛 afford it,鈥� can be replaced with formative thinking, such as, 鈥淗ow can we make this work,鈥� 鈥淚s there another way we can do this.鈥�
• Remember that the only person you can change is yourself. If your partner exhibits behaviour that is upsetting to you, half the battle can be to change yourself in such a way that it leads the other person to evolve, as well.
• The secret to longevity is good maintenance. Do those little things to keep the relationship humming along; nurturing, finding value in the relationship, and not taking it for granted. Relationships are not 鈥渢hings.鈥� They are a dynamic ongoing process for growth, well-being and good health.

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Individuals who wrote themselves a compassionate or optimistic letter every day for a week were less depressed up to three months later and reported an overall increase in happiness after six months.

More than 200 people logged onto a website for seven consecutive nights to complete the exercise, then filled out questionnaires measuring their progress at intervals of one, three and six months. Participants were assigned one of three conditions: self-compassion, optimism or a neutral control condition.

鈥淚nterestingly, we noted significant improvements in mood for all participants, except those who exhibited extreme neediness,鈥� says study co-author (right), a psychology professor in 91亚色鈥檚 Faculty of Health.

In the self-compassion exercise, participants were directed to address an upsetting event, attempting to comfort themselves as they would a friend in a similar situation.

鈥淭he idea was to try and be good to yourself, to realize your distress makes sense and provide the words you would need to hear to feel nurtured and soothed,鈥� Mongrain says. The exercise was adapted by Leah Shapira, the study鈥檚 lead author and a graduate student in 91亚色鈥檚 Department of Psychology.

Those assigned an optimistic task were instructed to visualize a future in which current issues were resolved and give themselves advice on paper on how to get there. In the control condition, participants wrote freely about an early memory.

Researchers then looked at the effect of compassion versus optimism for individuals prone to depression. Numerous studies, including Mongrain鈥檚 own, have established that dependent and self-critical personality types are at high risk for depression. Self critics feel guilty for not living up to the demanding standards they set for themselves, generating feelings of worthlessness. Dependent personalities are characterized by fear of abandonment and the dissolution of interpersonal relationships.

鈥淚mmature dependents experience intense fear of rejection and a sense of helplessness,鈥� Mongrain says. 鈥淢ature dependents, on the other hand, thrive on connectedness; they are people pleasers who experience anxiety but can have positive and trusting interactions with others.鈥�

Researchers found that self critics experienced the greatest benefits from optimism exercises, whereas those with more connected personalities profited most from self-compassion. 鈥淐onnected individuals are able to nurture others, meaning that this compassion can theoretically be extended to the self,鈥� Mongrain says.

The study, 鈥淭he Benefits of Self-Compassion and Optimism Exercises for Individuals Vulnerable to Depression鈥�, was published in The Journal of Positive Psychology. Those with access can view the study through .

This study was funded by a grant from the .

Mongrain's study was covered by in an article that included fictional satirical letters to themselves by Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff:

Anyone can write a love note to himself to help create lasting happiness. The only caveat is that it doesn't work as well if you're too self-critical, needy and oversensitive to potential abandonment. That's the finding of a research paper out of 91亚色, published recently in The Journal of Positive Psychology.

"It was an effort to create a tool for when things don't go as well as you wanted," says Myriam Mongrain, professor of psychology in 91亚色's Faculty of Hedicine, who worked as project leader on the study along with lead author and 91亚色 graduate student Leah Shapira (MA '09).

Mongrain acknowledges that in Western society such Buddhist-style loving kindness directed toward the self is not encouraged or even acceptable. "Many believe that you won't get anywhere by being kind to yourself; letting yourself off the hook is a recipe for failure or disaster," she says. "They've begun to believe that they need to be tough on themselves to reach their high standards.... For them, they might think it meant they were lazy or self-indulgent. But it offers another world view, another prescription in how to relate to oneself. ... The public needs to know that this will not interfere with their work ethic."

The approach might also lead to greater harmony among people, she adds. "If you interpret events as signs that you're incompetent, that you're a failure, that you're inadequate, all of those judgments toward yourself will lead to an unhealthy approach 鈥� overcompensating for example...and you become angry as a way to defend yourself, to retaliate."

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Last week, 16 therapists from as far as Israel, Hong Kong, Denmark, Portugal and Australia, as well as聽the United States, were at 91亚色 for four days of in-depth skill training at the Emotion-Focused Therapy Level Two 2010 Summer Institute led by Greenberg. The week before, Level One was offered. Both sessions, which聽were full and had a waiting list, were held at the new聽 at the 91亚色 Psychology Clinic (YUPC).

Right: Leslie Greenberg instructs therapists from around the world on emotion-focused therapy

鈥淚t鈥檚 the only place in the world they can do this in-depth聽training聽that I developed with my collaborators, and it鈥檚 becoming a world-recognized approach,鈥� says Greenberg, who and the 2010 Carl Rogers Award聽from the American Psychological Association's Society for Humanistic Psychology (Division 32).

Although ideas about EFT began percolating when Greenberg was completing his doctorate in psychology at 91亚色, the approach really started to come together in 1993 following the book聽, co-authored by Greenberg. He has since authored and co-authored several books on the subject, including . It was聽in 1995 that Greenberg began doing evidence-based research to support the approach.

Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) was the dominant treatment at the time and had already generated evidence that it worked, but as Greenberg says, 鈥渋t鈥檚 not an in-depth approach to how humans function. It鈥檚 good at helping people cope, but not really good at dealing with the core problems people have. So it seemed important to develop a much more in-depth approach to human emotions.鈥� And in the 1980s, there was a greater understanding of the role emotions played. 鈥淢ore and more scientific evidence began to show how important emotions were in life.鈥� That included some of the unpleasant emotions.

Left: From front left,聽therapists Timothy Downing Brown from the United States and聽Ben Shuhar from Israel, and from back left,聽Nels Klint Karsvang and Belinda Lange from Denmark, in the Emotion Focused Therapy Level Two 2010 Summer Institute at 91亚色

There is strong evidence now that EFT, with its focus on developing emotional intelligence and聽the importance of secure relationships, helps couples having marital difficulties, as well as individuals suffering from depression, anxiety and eating disorders, says Greenberg, who was awarded the 2004 Distinguished Career Award by the Society for Psychotherapy Research, an international, multidisciplinary, scientific organization.

EFT聽is designed to help people accept, express, regulate, understand and transform emotion, not deny or suppress it. Emotion alerts people to what is important in any given situation and acts as a guide to what is needed or wanted, says Greenberg. Working with these emotions helps people to figure out what they should do.

Right: From left, Eve Alon from Israel, Leslie Greenberg, Chui Fan Yip from Hong Kong, Melissa Harte from Australia, Candice Knight from the US and Jo茫o Salgado from Portugal were just a few of the therapists who came to 91亚色 to learn emotion-focused therapy

鈥淓FT focuses on helping people become aware of emotions, express their emotions in聽the right way at the right time, learn to tolerate and regulate them, and to reflect on them to make sense of them and transform them,鈥� says Greenberg. It is not enough to learn about emotions; people need to experience them in a safe environment, such as in a therapy session, and learn how to manage and use them in a flexible manner. It鈥檚 not about eliminating聽emotions, but working with them.

Therapeutic approaches such as CBT and psychoanalysis have their place and have helped a lot of people, but they don鈥檛 address the whole picture, he says.

Now that EFT is an internationally recognized approach, Greenberg will be spending much of his upcoming sabbatical training therapists around the world who couldn鈥檛 make it to 91亚色 this summer, starting聽in his home country of South Africa.

The Emotion-Focused Training for Couples 2010 Institute聽is the next session Greenberg will offer for therapists at the Emotion-Focused Therapy Clinic聽from聽Nov. 22 to 25.

For more information or to register for future training institutes, visit the聽YUPC Continuing Education Web site.

By Sandra McLean, YFile writer

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The title will be conferred on Armstrong at the Spring 2010 Convocation on June 16 at 10:30am and on Greenberg during the June 17 ceremony at 10:30am.

A Distinguished Research Professorship is awarded to a professor who has demonstrated scholarly achievement by sustained publication or other recognized and accepted demonstrations of sustained authoritative contributions to scholarship.

Right: Pat Armstrong

Armstrong, who is appointed to聽graduate programs in health, political science, science & technology, sociology and women's studies,聽holds a (CHSRF)/ (CIHR) Chair in Health Services.聽She is also a聽professor of sociology in the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies and an executive member of the 91亚色 Institute for Health Research and the Graduate Program in Health Policy & Equity .

She recently received Social Sciences &聽Humanities Research Council of Canada () funding through the program to identify promising practices for understanding and organizing long-term residential health care. Armstrong's project seeks to learn from and with other countries to understand the approaches, structures, accountability practices and ownership arrangements that create conditions prompting respectful and dignified treatment for both residents and caregivers.

Another SSHRC-funded research project looks at the risks nurses face in health care, while a Canadian Institutes of Health Research-funded project compared the workplace conditions and levels of violence faced by long-term care workers to those in Nordic countries.

She has authored, co-authored or co-edited over 20 books, including , , and .

Armstrong chairs Women & Health Care Reform, a working group that crosses the Centres of Excellence for Women's Health, and is acting co-director of the National Network on Environments & Women鈥檚 Health. She is currently a principal of the Ontario Training Centre in Health Services & Policy Research, a board member of the 91亚色 Institute for Health Research, and has served as both chair of the Department of Sociology at 91亚色 and director of the School of Canadian Studies at Carleton.

In addition, Armstrong has served as an expert witness in more than a dozen cases heard before bodies ranging from the federal court to federal human rights tribunals on issues related to women鈥檚 health-care work and to pay equity.

Left: Leslie Greenberg

(PhD 鈥�76), appointed to the Graduate Program in Psychology,聽is among the pioneers and is primary developer of emotion-focused therapy (EFT) for individuals and for couples, which is based on the findings that emotions influence thought and behaviour.聽It is a psychotherapy technique that promotes the resolution of unpleasant emotions by working with them rather than suppressing or avoiding them.聽Greenberg is interested in couple and individual therapy using EFT, as well as examining how people deal with unresolved emotions and聽how聽that affects their ability to forgive. In recent years, he has used EFT to help couples聽when one person has had an affair. He is also interested in how EFT can help people聽with聽depression.

EFT is now recognized as evidence-based treatment for depression as well as couple conflict, and there is also growing evidence of its effectiveness for trauma, interpersonal problems and eating disorders.聽In a 2002 study, Greenberg and his colleagues studied individuals who had suffered injuries ranging from emotional to physical abuse and found that those who were treated with EFT had much better results than individuals who were treated with psycho-educational therapy. Greenberg has devoted over 20 years to EFT research and has conducted EFT workshops for therapists interested in learning his theory and technique around the globe. Closer to home,聽he is providing training in EFT for professionals from around the world at the 91亚色 Psychology Clinic.

Greenberg has won many awards, including the Award for Excellence in Professional Training from the Canadian Council of Professional Psychology Programs, the Carl Rogers Award from the Division 32, the Distinguished Career Award from the Society for Psychotherapy Research and the Professional Award for Distinguished Contributions to Psychology as a Profession from the .

His聽professional publications include more than 100 peer-reviewed papers, 89 book chapters and some 17 books, including , , and .

He is a founding member聽of the and the Society for Constructivism in Psychotherapy, and a past president of the .

In addition, he is on the editorial board of many psychotherapy journals, including the and the .

For more information about Distinguished Research Professorships, visit the Faculty of Graduate Studies Web page. The list of current and past Distinguished Research Professors is available on the 91亚色 Research Web site.

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