Smoking cessation and exercise promotion counseling in psychologists who practice psychotherapy.

PURPOSE: Little is known about health promotion within the context of psychotherapy. The present study assessed a sample of psychologists' attitudes and behavior with their psychotherapy clients regarding smoking cessation and exercise promotion counseling. DESIGN: This is a cross-sectional survey study. SETTING: Surveys were mailed. SUBJECTS: Licensed psychologists (1000) in Massachusetts were randomly selected to receive surveys. Psychologists practicing psychotherapy at least 5 h/wk were invited to participate. Out of 496 responses, 328 completed surveys were analyzed. MEASURES: Two parallel surveys were developed for smoking (N = 154) and exercise (N = 174) assessing health promotion behaviors and attitudes. RESULTS: Approximately 43% of respondents inquire about smoking and 53% inquire about exercise with new clients. Over 45% advise smoking clients to quit and 50% advise sedentary clients to exercise. Over 80% of respondents felt smoking and exercise should be addressed in psychotherapy; however only 41% of smoking and 65% of exercise respondents felt confident in their counseling abilities. Lack of confidence, beliefs about relevance of smoking and exercise to psychological functioning, and beliefs that such personal choices should not be addressed in psychotherapy significantly predicted smoking cessation and exercise promotion behaviors. CONCLUSION: Many respondents are engaging in health promotion with their psychotherapy clients. Exercise promotion is occurring more frequently and is viewed more favorably compared with smoking cessation counseling. Health promotion attitudes are associated with counseling behaviors. Limitations include self-selection bias and small sample size.

Dissonance thin-ideal and didactic healthy behavior eating disorder prevention programs: results from a controlled trial.

OBJECTIVE: Negative body image, a common problem among college-age women in the United States, strongly correlates with low self-esteem, disturbed eating behavior, and eating disorders. Psychoeducational programs have inconsistently shown improvement in body image, thin-ideal internalization, eating behaviors, psychosocial functioning, and self-esteem. METHOD: In the current study, college women with body image concerns (N = 84) were randomly assigned to a cognitive dissonance-based, thin-ideal internalization, single-session workshop (DTI; n = 26); a psychoeducational, healthy behavior, single-session workshop (HB; n = 24); or a wait-list control (WL; n = 34). RESULTS: Comparing baseline data with 4-week follow-up data, results indicated that both DTI and HB participants reported improvement in body image, thin-ideal internalization, and eating behaviors. DISCUSSION: Results provide evidence that both interventions effectively reduce risk factors for eating pathology.