Adelphi University Gordon F. Derner School of Psychology Joins $5.2 Million Mental Health Research Initiative

Adelphi University's Gordon F. Derner School of Psychology has been selected as a collaborative partner in a $5.2 million grant.

Awarded by the John Templeton Foundation to Boston University, this three-year initiative, "Training and Treatment Integration Research for Virtue and Flourishing in Mental Healthcare: A Team Science Project," aims to develop evidence-based training tools that integrate relational virtues and human flourishing into psychotherapy practices. The project will employ a collaborative team science approach across eight clinical sites in the United States and Ireland.

The Adelphi University Gordon F. Derner School of Psychology will receive $400,000 in direct funding, with an additional 15 percent allocated for indirect costs. The Adelphi team includes Professor Catherine F. Eubanks, PhD, principal investigator, and co-investigators, Derner Dean J. Christopher Muran, PhD, and Assistant Professor Emma Freetly Porter, PhD, who will focus on the impact of alliance-focused training (AFT) on relational virtues and flourishing among supervisors, therapists and patients.

AFT, which has been a research focus of Dr. Muran and his colleagues for more than 30 years (with Dr. Eubanks as a principal collaborator for nearly 20 years), is an empirically based approach that helps therapists develop the skills to build and maintain a strong therapeutic alliance, which is an essential part of effective treatment. It is currently being advanced by the Center for Alliance-Focused Training, an organization co-directed by Dr. Muran and Dr. Eubanks.

"Implementing an AFT approach helps therapists develop and refine their abilities to engage hard-to-reach patients and to work constructively with therapeutic impasses or alliance ruptures when they occur, and revitalizes and deepens everyday clinical work," said Dr. Muran. "By integrating AFT with the study of relational virtues, the project aims to enhance therapeutic outcomes and promote human flourishing within mental health care settings."

Dr. Eubanks notes that this initiative will also support a cohort of early-career clinical researchers, fostering a sustainable network dedicated to advancing virtue and flourishing in psychotherapy.

This project, which represents an extension of previous research funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, will culminate in the development of clinical protocols and their dissemination through publications, presentations and training seminars.

Other collaborators include: The Albert & Jessie Danielsen Institute at Boston University, University of Denver, McLean Hospital, Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders in collaboration with Trinity College Dublin; The George Washington, Adelphi and Indiana universities; and The University of Iowa and University of Utah.

Read more about the grant and individual projects.