Research
Overview
My scholarly work has taken
several forms. In addition to conducting
empirical studies that yielded a number of intriguing results, my colleagues
and I have devoted a fair amount of energy to conceptualizing methodological
problems and solutions in the study of change. Several of our papers suggest that Attribute x Treatment
Interaction (ATI) research can enhance our understanding of how treatments work (Shoham-Salomon
& Hannah, 1991; Shoham & Rohrbaugh, 1995, Rohrbaugh, Shoham, &
Racioppo, 2002). Others attempt to clarify issues in
the study of psychotherapy integration, where there is much confusion regarding
the usefulness of rigorous research on pure-form treatments (Shoham, 1993,
Shoham & Rohrbaugh, 1997). I
have also done both quantitative and qualitative reviews of empirical research
(Shoham-Salomon & Rosenthal, 1987; Baucom, Shoham et al., 1998).
Beyond this, Michael
Rohrbaugh and I described change principles and intervention techniques related
to couple and family therapy (e.g., Shoham, Rohrbaugh, & Patterson, 1995)
and offered a theoretical statement asserting the primacy of interpersonal (vs.
intrapersonal) ironic processes in the maintenance of clinical problems (Shoham
& Rohrbaugh, 1997, Rohrbaugh & Shoham, 2001). The work on ironic
processes in problem maintenance and change reflects an increasingly central
theme in our current research -- namely, the importance of couple/family
relationship patterns, not only as moderators of differential treatment
response but also as factors in problem maintenance. We have shown the importance of marital quality for survival
of congestive heart failure (Coyne, Rohrbaugh, Shoham, et al., 2001), and we
have developed and tested a family consultation model for change-resistant,
health-compromised smokers and their spouses (Rohrbaugh, Shoham, et al., 2001; Shoham, Rohrbaugh, & Trost,
2004). Our study of
congestive heart patients and their spouses was funded by the American Heart
Association (AHA), and our study of change-resistant smokers was funded by the
National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA).
Since
September 2002 Michael Rohrbaugh and I have been leading the Arizona site of
the California-Arizona node of NIDA’s Clinical Trial Network, under the
leadership of James Sorenson at UCSF.
We have partnered with a large Community Treatment Center in Tucson, La
Frontera Center to conduct a
clinical trial of Brief Strategic Family Therapy (BSFT) for adolescent drug
abuse. In addition, we are
collaborating with Drs. Szapocznik, Robbins, and Feaster at the University of
Miami on a platform study designed to examine how and for whom the BSFT
works. This is a five-year,
multi-site study based in Arizona, funded by NIDA’s Treatment brunch via an R01
mechanism. We are currently collecting data in 8 community treatment programs (N=480)
around the country (including La Frontera Center in Tucson).