Author: Patti Avellanet

New Videos Added to APA PsycTherapy (Summer 2024)

Posted on by Patti Avellanet in For Faculty, For Individual Subscribers, For Librarians, For Students

On August 15, APA PsycTherapy® was updated with 11 new videos covering a variety of clinical approaches and therapy topics.

In Strengths and Flourishing in Psychotherapy, Steven J. Sandage leads the discussion of how to incorporate strengths-based interventions into a variety of clinical approaches based on four therapists’ demonstrations.

The Basics of Group Therapy with Cheri L. Marmarosh expertly demonstrates the group formation process, including the importance of rapport building, expectation setting, and collaboration within group co-leadership.

Keith Dobson’s skilled demonstration of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) in multiple contexts is featured in the following videos:

  • Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Depression
  • Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Exploring Self and Relationships

Jessica Borelli’s pioneering form of an attachment-based technique known as “relational savoring” can be incorporated into many therapeutic approaches, helping the client to focus on elements of joy in a key relationship (e.g., child, spouse, partner) as a pathway to enhanced well-being and mental health:

  • Relational Savoring (includes discussion of theoretical underpinnings and evidence base)
  • Relational Savoring With a Parent of a Young Child

Louis Hoffman’s expertise in existential–humanistic therapy is featured in a variety of clinical scenarios:

  • Existential–Humanistic Case Formulation (includes discussion of theoretical underpinnings and evidence base)
  • Exploring Caregiver Burden Through an Existential–Humanistic Therapy Lens
  • Existential–Humanistic Therapy With a Client Struggling With Perfectionism

Jonathan Raskin’s videos on constructivist therapy demonstrate how to proficiently guide clients toward reconceptualizing a problem in meaningful and life-enhancing ways through different forms of self-expression:

  • Constructive Therapy in Practice (includes discussion of underlying philosophy, evidence base, and practical applications of constructivist therapy)
  • Constructive Therapy With a Client Navigating Procrastination


APA PsycTherapy currently includes 959 videos demonstrating 170+ approaches in service of 360+ topics. Each year, a total of 15-25 new videos are added to APA PsycTherapy, showcasing the latest examples and emerging best practices from clinical psychology.

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APA PsycInfo Webinars: Spring 2024

Posted on by Patti Avellanet in For Librarians

Interested in strengthening your APA database skills? Join an APA trainer for the next round of APA PsycInfo® webinars designed for students, faculty, and anyone else who wants to learn more about how to search APA PsycInfo more effectively!

Techniques covered can also be used with APA PsycArticles® and APA PsycBooks®.

Details and registration links are below; all times shown are U.S. Eastern.

APA PsycInfo: Beginner Search

This 45-minute session will help anyone who is new to searching the behavioral sciences literature using APA PsycInfo.

We’ll demonstrate simple yet powerful techniques that can increase your proficiency in short order, including how to quickly identify the best search terms; apply filters to narrow the range of results; and pinpoint empirical studies.

Highlights include the use of APA Thesaurus terms and other database fields to target your search, Boolean operators to accurately include or exclude concepts, and cited references to find related research.

APA PsycInfo: Advanced Search

This 60-minute session highlights some of APA PsycInfo’s advanced functionality that’s designed to increase your efficiency by retrieving better search results faster.

After an overview of the three main vocabularies [keywords, Thesaurus subjects, and Classifications] you can use to search APA PsycInfo, we’ll share some easy ways to quickly expand or narrow your list of search results.

You’ll also learn about syntax for proximity search and truncation; using citations to explore related research; applying search limits and results filters; using the Author Affiliation field to discover where research of interest is happening; searching the Test and Measures field for information about tests used in the scholarly literature; and using the Grant/Sponsorship field to discover potential funding sources.

Can’t attend a scheduled session?

Redefined: The APA Dictionary of Psychology

Posted on by Patti Avellanet in For Faculty, For Individual Subscribers, For Librarians, For Students

We’re excited to announce a recent major update to the APA Dictionary of Psychology! Notable as the first content update since the final publication of the print version in 2015, this release features a number of benefits, including

  • revisions of 1,500+ terms related to gender and sexuality; race, ethnicity, and culture; aging and older adulthood; and disabilities and disorders
  • alignment with the APA Inclusive Language Guide and additional APA resources, including removal of binary wording to promote gender inclusivity
  • updated DSM-5-TR diagnostic terminology, and
  • date information for each entry’s most recent update.

With more than 25,000 authoritative entries spanning 90 psychology subfields, this web-based tool is freely available at https://dictionary.apa.org.

Users who access APA PsycArticles on APA PsycNet have integrated access to the dictionary when viewing the HTML version of full-text APA journal articles. Look for the dotted blue underline that links to the dictionary entry.

Definitions are also accessible and highlighted in search engine results. Quickly look up a term from anywhere by typing the word/phrase you want to look up into your browser’s search bar and look for the APA Dictionary in the results.

Screenshot of APA Dictionary of Psychology entry gate-control theory

TIP: Typing dictionary.apa.org or APA Dictionary followed by your desired term into your browser’s search bar may return the APA Dictionary entry as one of the top search results, depending on your search engine (e.g., Googling dictionary.apa.org gate control hypothesis or searching DuckDuckGo for APA dictionary gate control hypothesis returns the APA Dictionary entry for gate-control theory).


The APA Dictionary in Psychology is a landmark reference for terminology in psychology and the behavioral sciences, beginning with its print publication in 2007 and transitioning into an online resource in 2018. To learn more, check out the companion blog post Look up Psychology Terms in the APA Dictionary of Psychology or visit the APA Dictionary to explore on your own!

Now Available: 500+ new hours of streaming video in APA PsycTherapy

Posted on by Patti Avellanet in For Faculty, For Individual Subscribers, For Librarians, For Students

We are excited to announce that the amount of content in the APA PsycTherapy® database more than doubled on May 30!

Clinical psychology faculty, researchers, and graduate students can now access 910+ videos presenting more than 1,030 unscripted full therapy sessions conducted by expert practitioners with individuals, couples, and families.

Parent-Child Interaction Therapy Conducted Online, featuring Larissa N. Niec, PhD. From the APA Video Series - APA Teletherapy Video Series, now available in APA PsycTherapy.
APA Teletherapy Video Series titles now available in APA PsycTherapy

This latest update includes the full catalog of the APA Psychotherapy Video Series in addition to newly published single video titles, such as:

  • Positive Psychotherapy Delivered Online (Tayyab Rashid)
  • Working With Couples in the Correctional System (Corrine Datchi)
  • Multicultural Feminist Therapy With Adolescent Girls of Color (Thema Bryant-Davis)
  • Working With Clients Experiencing Climate Distress (Leslie Davenport and Wendy Greenspun)

Setting standards for nearly 30 years, the APA Psychotherapy Video Series is well known in the field of psychology and includes many best-selling titles. Many videos feature the clinician who created the psychotherapy approach along with framing content, including an interview about their approach and their professional analysis of the therapy demonstration. This provides unique and valuable instructional context to benefit students as part of both coursework and independent study. All future APA Psychotherapy Video Series releases will be included in APA PsycTherapy, totaling 20-40 hours of new streaming video content each year.

APA PsycTherapy includes content related to equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI), a central principle guiding APA’s organizational mission. To help foster cultural competency and sensitivity, more than 50 titles feature topics related to EDI or feature therapists of color. Examples include:

  • Working With Clients With Physical Disabilities (Linda Mona)
  • Affirmative Counseling With Transgender and Gender Diverse Clients (Lore Dickey)
  • Cultural Humility in Therapy (Cirleen DeBlaere and Jesse Owen)
  • The Dynamics of Power and Privilege in Psychotherapy (Malin Fors)
  • Reflections on Race and Ethnicity in the Therapeutic Setting (Rita Chi-Ying Chung, Joseph M. Cervantes, Fred Bemak, and Thema Bryant-Davis)
  • Ethnocultural Psychotherapy (Lillian Comas-Diaz)
  • Working With Issues of Social Class in Psychotherapy (William M. Liu)

This powerful teaching resource provides authentic, engaging examples of therapeutic approaches such as cognitive-behavioral therapy, mindfulness-based interventions, and trauma-focused therapy. Through firsthand observation, students learn how to translate theoretical concepts into practice and different ways of handling critical incidents that can arise during treatment.

APA PsycTherapy also includes the APA PsycTherapy Teaching Guide to assist faculty with curricula development and training the next generation of expert practitioners. It features exercises for using APA PsycTherapy with students, in clinical supervision settings, in psychotherapy researcher training, and more.

Related Resources

Look up Psychology Terms in the APA Dictionary of Psychology

Posted on by Patti Avellanet in For Librarians

Perhaps you need a memory refresh for the statistical term “P factor analysis”? Maybe you’re curious to know what the acronym “SSRI” stands for, or the different types of conditions for which SSRIs are commonly used?

Faster than digging into an e-textbook and more reliable than a Google search, the online version of the APA Dictionary of Psychology® puts at your fingertips more than 25,000 authoritative entries spanning 90 subfields. Freely available on the APA web site, you can quickly access the APA dictionary to look up a specific psychology term or browse the headwords.

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