Education, accomplishments, and related professional information for this faculty member can be found in his vita.

Cecero, J. (October, 2002). Praying Through Our Lifetraps: A Psycho-Spiritual Approach to Freedom, Totowa, N.J.: Catholic Book Publishing/Resurrection Press

As a clinical psychologist and Jesuit priest, my current interests are in the integration of spirituality and psychotherapy. More specifically, within the context of Schema Therapy, which focuses on the identification and change of early maladaptive schemas, I am interested in the application of spiritual techniques, e.g. meditation, contemplation, and other prayer techniques to complement psychotherapeutic strategies at the phases of assessment and intervention. Following on an earlier publication of a book designed to describe this approach, Praying through Lifetraps: A Psycho-Spiritual Approach to Freedom (2002), I am currently writing a treatment manual for therapists who are interested in integrating the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola within psychotherapy.

Psychotherapy Process and Outcome

As a practicing clinical psychologist, I have an enduring interest in theories of psychotherapy (psychoanalytic, cognitive-behavioral, and schema therapy), the hypothetical active ingredients in treatment, and the relationship between psychotherapy and outcome.

Schema Therapy is inherently appealing to me, as it integrates a dynamic, object relational approach with standard cognitive-behavioral and gestalt interventions. In addition to my ongoing practice with this model, I have written about its theoretical components in the context of a published case study (Cecero & Young, 2001). I continue to engage clinical graduate students to work with me to empirically validate its tools and tenets (Cecero, Nelson, & Gillie, 2004).

Beyond psychotherapy models and their relationships to outcome, I explore various components of psychotherapy process, and more specifically the assessment and function of the therapeutic alliance. Reporting on the reliability and validity of available instruments used to measure alliance (Cecero, Fenton, Nich, Frankforter, & Carroll, 2001), we found that six of the most commonly used measures all had acceptable reliabilities, although these reliabilities did vary by treatment condition, suggesting that psychometric properties, and by extension alliance-process-outcome relationships, may vary across treatments. This finding is potentially significant for researchers in their choice of instruments to study alliance, as treatments that place different emphases on the therapeutic alliance might have different reliabilities, which could affect strengths of relationships between process and outcome. In a follow-up study (Fenton, Cecero, Nich, Frankforter, & Carroll, 2001), we found that alliance as rated by observers was predictive of outcome, whereas client-rated and therapist-rated instruments did not predict outcome.

Continuing research on the therapeutic alliance in collaboration with Jon Morgenstern, Ph.D, at Mt. Sinai School of Medicine and at the Center for Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) research of Columbia University, I have served as a consultant and supervisor on a clinical trial to treat alcohol abuse and unsafe sex. Using the short form of the Working Alliance Inventory, I measured client-rated and therapist-rated alliance, but consistent with the study cited above (Fenton, Cecero, Nich, et al., 2001), there was no association in preliminary analyses between alliance and alcohol use or unsafe sex outcomes (Cecero, Hensl, & Russo, 2001). Instead, we found a significant association between readiness to change and outcome. With an adolescent sample, we assessed the predictive validity of alliance in two treatment conditions and found that it was more predictive of outcome in the family condition than in individual CBT (Hogue, Dauber, Faw, Cecero, & LIddle, 2006). Future psychotherapy research will include studies in the measurement and construct validity of Schema Therapy tools and tenets, as well as collaborative studies with Mt. Sinai and CASA in the therapeutic alliance. Predoctoral theses and doctoral dissertation research under my mentorship is currently underway on the alliance, its measurement and predictive validity, in an adolescent substance abuse sample across two treatment modalities, i.e. cognitive-behavioral and multimodal family therapy.

Cecero, J., Fenton, L., Nich, C., Frankforter, T., & Carroll, K. (2001). Focus on therapeutic alliance: The psychometric properties of six measures across three treatments. Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, Practice and Training, 38(1), 1-11.

Cecero, J., Nelson, J., & Gillie, J. (2004). Tools and tenets of Schema Therapy: Toward the construct validity of the Early Maladaptive Schema Questionnaire-Research Version. Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, 11 (5), 344-357.

Cecero, J. & Young, J. (2001). Case of Silvia: A Schema-Focused Treatment Approach. Journal of Psychotherapy Integration, 11(2 ), 217-229.

Fenton, L., Cecero, J., Nich, C., Frankforter, T., & Carroll, K. (2001).Perspective is everything: The predictive validity of six working alliance instruments. Journal of Psychotherapy Practice and Research, 10 (4), 262-268.

Hogue, A., Dauber, S., Faw, L., Cecero, J., & Liddle, H. (2006).Early therapeutic alliance and treatment outcome in individual and family therapy for adolescent behavior problems. Journal of Clinical and Consulting Psychology, 74 (1), 121-129.

Personality Assessment of Substance Abusers

As noted above, my interest in substance abuse, and specifically the personality correlates of substance abusers, dates back to my earliest research. Using projective measures, i.e. the Draw-A-Person Questionnaire (Cecero & Karp, 1996) and the Karp Objective Word Association Test (Cecero & Karp, 1997), we found that alcoholics tended to use more denial and were more demeaning of their drawn characters than were controls, and that they offered more hostile responses than controls. This research motivated further attempts to conceptualize substance abuse in a broader personality framework and motivated my search through the psychoanalytic literature on substance abuse, leading to my dissertation and publication (Cecero & Holmstrom, 1997) on the construct of alexithymia as described above.

In more recent research, collaborating with colleagues at Yale, I have examined the DSM Axis II diagnostic categories and their reliability and validity among substance abusers. Focusing specifically on the diagnosis of Antisocial Personality Disorder (Cecero, Ball, Tennen, Kranzler, & Rounsaville, 1999), which has been globally, and arguably erroneously, associated with more severe substance dependence, we subtyped a large clinical sample, inpatient and outpatient, of those diagnosed with APD into groups comparing: a) adult antisocial behavior versus full APD; b) APD with low versus high sociopathy; c) APD with versus without lifetime depression; and d) APD with versus without other Axis II disorders. We found that it was those with APD and comorbid Axis II disorders who were the most severely impaired at baseline, and that those with APD and a history of lifetime depression exhibited the greatest reductions in impairment severity from baseline to follow-up. These findings underscore the importance of assessing the full spectrum of Axis II pathology in the treatment planning of substance abuse populations.

In a subsequent study of addicted patients in a clinical trial with Schema Therapy to address Axis II pathology, we (Ball & Cecero, 2001) were uniquely suited to assess and report on a more complete personality profile of the sample. Correlational analyses indicated that the severity of each personality disorder was associated with a unique profile of presenting problems and underlying traits and schemas.

Future research in the personality assessment of substance abusers will be conducted in collaboration with Mt. Sinaiand CASA, and specifically to generate a more comprehensive profile of personality pathology among substance abusers and to examine personality predictors of treatment outcome.

Ball , S.A. & Cecero, J.J. (2001). Addicted patients with personality disorders: Traits, schemas, and presenting problems. Journal of Personality Disorders, 15(1), 72-83.

Cecero, J., Ball, S., Tannen, H., Kranzler, H., & Rounsaville, B.(1999). Concurrent and predictive validity of subtyping antisocial personality disorder among substance abusers. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 187, 478-486.

Cecero, J and Holmstrom, R. (1997). Alexithymia and affect pathology among adult male alcoholics. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 53 (3), 201-208.

Cecero, J. and Karp, S. (1997). Word Association Profiles of Alcoholics. Journal of Personality Assessment, 69 (1), 199-204.

Cecero, J. and Karp, S. (1996). Denial and self-denigration in the Draw-A-Person profiles of alcoholics. Current Psychology, 15 (3), 254-257.

Personality Assessment in General

In collaboration with Dr. Robert Bornstein, I continue to study the construct of dependency, its measurement and construct validity. In a meta-analysis of studies assessing the relation between interpersonal dependency test scores and the five-factor model of personality (Bornstein & Cecero, 2000), we found that dependency scores were correlated positively with Neuroticism and Agreeableness and negatively with Extraversion, Openness, and Conscientiousness. Moreover, comparable score intercorrelations were obtained when participants’ dependency levels were assessed with the dependent personality disorder questionnaire and the dependent personality disorder interview. These findings are consistent with those reported above with APD (Cecero et al., 1999), in suggesting the usefulness of alternative approaches to personality assessment, at least to supplement, and perhaps even to replace the categorical DSM approach. One interesting hypothesis that we explored in two separate studies (Russo, Cecero, & Bornstein, 2001; Fornabia, Cecero, & Bornstein, under review) was that there would be gender differences in dependency in objective (males scoring higher), but not projective, measures of dependency. In both studies, we did not find gender differences either on the objective or projective measures, but we attribute the lack of differences on the objective measures to the nature of the samples. Future studies in this area will focus on the relationship between religiosity and healthy dependence.

In a separate line of inquiry on psychological mindedness (PM), I have been collaborating with former doctoral student Mark Beitel, to establish its construct validity.  This research represents the flip side of my own earlier research with alexithymia, which has been used to establish its discriminant validity. Dr. Beitel, now a research scientist with my former colleagues at Yale, and I have established a program of research to establish the personality, cognitive, and affective dimensions of PM. Our first published paper together (Beitel & Cecero, 2003) examined the five-factor and attachment style predictors of PM, and Openness to Experience among the factors and Attachment to Peers among the attachment styles emerged as the best predictors. Consistent with the association of PM and Openness, in our second study on the cognitive correlates of PM (Beitel, Ferrer, & Cecero, 2004), PM emerged as positively associated with Ambiguity Tolerance. In our most recent study (Beitel, Ferrer, & Cecero, 2005), the data suggest that PM is related to mindfulness, private self-consciousness, and cognitive and affective indices of empathy. I am especially interested in the mindfulness correlation, and its implications for relating this construct to the spirituality variables that I am presently exploring in my most recent line of research.

Beitel, M. & Cecero, J. (2003). Predicting psychological mindedness from personality style and attachment security. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 59 , 163-172.

Beitel, M., Ferrer, E. & Cecero, J. (2004). Psychological mindedness and cognitive style. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 60, 567-582.

Beitel, M., Ferrer, E., & Cecero, J. (2005). Psychological mindedness and awareness of self and others. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 6(6), 739-750.

Bornstein, R.F. & Cecero, J.J. (2000). Deconstructing dependency in a five-factor world: A Meta-Analytic Review. Journal of Personality Assessment, 74 (2), 324-343.

Spirituality and Mental Health

In the last two years, I have become increasingly interested in role of spirituality as a protective factor in mental health (Cecero, 2004; 2005). More specifically, within the context of Schema Therapy (ST), I have generated theories about how a spiritual orientation and religious practices may supplement ST to create more positive and lasting therapeutic benefits. In my book on this subject, Praying through our Lifetraps: A Psycho-spiritual Path to Freedom (2002), I outline these theories and practices for personal and clinical use with others.

Empirically, I am interested in supporting the moderating role of spirituality in the relationship between maladaptive schemas and their hypothesized toxic consequences, i.e. depression and anxiety, problematic interpersonal relationships, and other maladaptive behaviors. One of the problematic and challenging tasks of this line of research is to generate a common definition of spirituality. Until such a definition emerges, I am using variables such as image of God, religious coping, spiritual transcendence, spiritual well-being, and intrinsic/extrinsic religiosity. In two separate undergraduate samples, image of God appears less of a moderator between perceived parental rejection and dysphoria than does image of self (Cecero, Marmon, Beitel, Hutz, & Jones, 2004). Positive religious coping, on the other hand, may be a more promising spirituality variable, as it appears to buffer the relationship between perceived parental rejection and dysphoria (Racine & Cecero, 2005) and substance use (Cecero & Fried, 2005.

Besides investigating the tonic role of spirituality on mental health outcome, I am also interested in exploring the personality correlates of people who are more spiritually oriented. To that end, I am comparing spiritual and psychological mindedness (Cecero Beitel, & Prout, in progress), and spirituality and healthy dependency, as opposed to over-dependency or counter-dependency (Cecero, Bedrosian, & Bornstein, 2006).

Finally, a third direction for this line of research is the relationship between spirituality and the enactment of values, including moral action (Higgins-D’Alessandro & Cecero, 2003), teaching and leadership (results were presented at the Division 36, Psychology of Religion, Mid-Winter 2003 conference), and conscientiousness in the workplace (results presented at Division 36, Mid-Winter 2005 conference). The workplace spirituality project is being conducted in collaboration with a subset of members of the interdisciplinary faculty seminar that I founded to research spirituality at Fordham   University.

Cecero, J. (2004). Religiosity and mental health. In Applied Developmental Science Encyclopedia (Vol. 2, pp. 917-918).

Cecero, J. (2005). Religiosity and American youth. Youth Activism: An   International Encyclopedia.(Vol.2, pp. 521-525).

Cecero, J., Bedrosian, D., Fuentes, A., & Bornstein, R. (2006). Religiosity and healthy dependency as predictors of spiritual well-being. International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, 16, 3.

Cecero, J. & Fried, A. (2005). Parental rejection and religiosity: Differential predictors of mood and substance abuse. Research in the Social Scientific Study of Religion, 16, 185-206.

Cecero, J., Marmon, T., Beitel, M., Hutz., A., & Jones, C. (2004). Images of mother, self, and God as predictors of dysphoria in non-clinical samples. Personality and Individual Differences, 36 (7), 1669-1680.

Higgins-D’Alessandro, A. & Cecero, J. (2003). The social nature of saintliness and moral action: A view of William James’s Varieties in relation to St.Ignatius and Lawrence Kohlberg. Journal of Moral Education, 32(4), 357-371

Racine, C. & Cecero, J. (2005). Religious coping moderates the relationship between early maladaptive schema origins and negative trait affect. Research in the Scientific Study of Religion, 15,  97-115.

American Psychological Association
Association for Psychological Science