There are a couple of emerging schools/trends worth noting in my opinion; one is "Acceptance and Commitment Therapy" in some ways a re-development of what would have been called Buddhist therapy 20 years ago; the basic idea I draw from some jargon-heavy books is that patients observe and accept emotional reactions rather than fighting them, and then commit to making changes in behavior and relationships and cognitions. There are also various strands of work integrating neuroscience knowledge with psychotherapy, such as using new research about memory reconsolidation to inform work with clients affected by memories or conditioned responses related to traumas. Sometimes such psychotherapy is branded "brain-based" psychotherapy, Some even talk of "mindfulness" psychotherapy that may blend the above two trends by suggesting that clients understand how brain and body processes are involved in their emotional states. I find these ideas useful and effective with many clients.

The second part of your first sentence brings up a side issue: your criteria of empirical validation. CBT is supposedly the most empirically validated, but this is because it is one of the most manualizable forms of therapy and thus easy to study. I think it is time to move on from assessing the value of a therapy technique based on the way it is implemented by grad students doing a technique in isolation, and instead consider a standard of whether a technique has some neuroscience basis to it.

I'm actually in favor of outcome studies, but as a measure of therapist effectiveness more than technique effectiveness. Isolating techniques in studies and using them regarding of indivdiual differences among clients is so countertherapeutic that it nullifies the effectiveness of most techniques, since individualization is more effective and efficient, than standardization (picture a surgeon making the same cuts regardless of the patient's body structure). The problem is that now we're talking about measuring the effectiveness of the therapist's skill in selecting and applying techniques (a skill level not necessarily correlated with years of experience, since some therapists get stuck in a rut of doing therapy the way they always have).

Great question; I'll be interested to read what other trends (Thought Field Therapy, Emotion-Focused Therapy, and of course EMDR) other people find useful and scientifically validated.

Cinar and James, have a look at what Bob Moss has to say on this matter.

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Robert_Moss2/contributions/?ev=prf_act

What he says makes sense to me. John

Dear John Boswell, the link seem to direct to the main page, not the exact contribution. Could you share the exact name of the contribution?

Cinar, I suggest you read "Psychotherapy and the Brain: The Dimensional Systems Model and Clinical Biopsychology' - but it would serve you well to read his other therapy-related papers too. You might want to follow Bob on RG and in that way get more information on this matter. John

A new edition of the book 'What Works for Whom?', is about to come out, which looks at the evidence-based treatments for a whole range of disorders. I think some of the most interesting recent developments are treatments which cut across the dynamic/cognitive/humanistic divide - one example is 'Mentalization Based Treatment' (MBT), which is building up an interesting evidence base, e.g. for the treatment of borderline personality... but as treatments become more eclectic/integrative, they become harder to evaluate using traditional models of treatment evaluation. John Weisz is doing some interesting studies on the value of 'modular' therapy as opposed to brand-specific interventions...

All the contributions in this topic, increased my understanding on the issue. Yet still I am curious about alternative models, for instance James Foley mentioned about a Buddhist therapy. We know there is an area called Pastoral Counseling, what about the spirituality based models, are there methodologically sound studies either with negative or positive attitude on the issue?

There is an emerging approach in Armenia - the Cognitive Conceptual Therapy, which has been worked out and practiced by me and my colleagues. The approach is integrative and carries the imprints of various philosophical and psychological concepts. You can find some artcles on CCT here (in Russian):

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/236902625____?ev=prf_pub

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/236905932____?ev=prf_pub

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/236902615_______?ev=prf_pub

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/256486213_______?ev=prf_pub

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/256486110______?ev=prf_pub

Article Анатомия психотравмы: боль, болезнь и исцеление [An Anatomy ...

The idea is quite interesting, are there any work in English on CCT? If not, could you make a very brief introduction to the key features of that approach?

There is a paper on English in press right now.

Cognitive Conceptual Therapy is integrative and carries the imprints of various philosophical and psychological concepts. The works of Roman stoics Epicurus, Markus Aurelius, the ideas of Parmenides about perception of the reality, philosophical views of Protagoras on relativity and instability of things, views of Greek Cyrenaica on the essence of cognition and perception, Sartre's concept of "fundamental project", neorealism of G.Bachelard, the theory of three worlds by C.Popper, empiriocritisizm of R.Avenarius and ideas of J.Vico have had great impact on the development of the basis of this approach. Likewise invaluable has been the influence of phenomenological psychology and philosophical psychotherapy by W.S. Sahakian, constructive alternativizm and the concept of personal constructs by G.Kelly, rational-emotional therapy by A.Ellis, the concept of "world image" and "personal meanings" by A.N.Leontev, theory of attitudes by G.Allport, theory of attitudes by D.Uznadze, theory of social views by S.Moscovici, theory of social attitudes by Sh.Nadirashvili.

The basic postulate of Cognitive Conceptual Therapy is that the attitude of a person to the reality and all other realities of life virtually are conceptual. Everything is cognized/learnt and perceived not according to and through single constructs or beliefs, but based on general cognitive-existential conceptual system.

Each person during his/her life develops a specific and unique world vision, world-view (Weltanschauung), which is called "Conceptual System" in Cognitive Linguistics, as well as in CCT. And via understanding this conceptual system and its characteristics mental health professionals could organize and realize psychotherapeutic treatment process more competently and effectively.

Another set of therapies you may want to examine are the so-called postmodern, or constructionist approaches. What is interesting about these is that they operate on fundamentally different principles than those approaches you described as "classical" (Psychoanalysis, CBT, Humanistic). These latter are sometimes described as 'modernist'. As I see it, the main difference between modern and postmodern approaches concerns the question of how we can "know" the other, and what effect knowledge has on people. Modernist approaches tend to suggest there is a pre-existing person there, and we have to find the right tools to discover the "truth" about him or her (e.g., in terms of his or her unconscious, defences, automatic thoughts, authenticity). In contrast, in postmodern approaches, the person is always in flux - there is no 'core' to be discovered inside - and is always being constructed and reconstructed by various social and discursive forces in which he or she lives - including their interactions with us (hence the term "constructionism").

Postmodern approaches tend to be more privileging of local knowledge (e.g., of our clients) rather than expert knowledge (e.g., of our textbooks), and as a result tend not to analyse, diagnose, or claim to 'understand' people. Rather, therapy here is more about hosting conversations, through which new stories can emerge and be entertained - new ways of constructing the person's life and situation. There is no single 'right' understanding, and no single right way of being a person (indeed, no single 'self' one is supposed or destined to be) so any number of constructions are possible. 

Some good examples of postmodern approaches are narrative therapy (e.g., White, 2007, Maps of narrative practice; White & Epston, 1990, Narrative means to therapeutic ends), and collaborative therapy (e.g., Anderson, 2008, Conversation, language, and possibilities).