Resistance is a phenomenon that tends to be universally dreaded by therapists. Therapists have described feeling frustrated, confused, guilty, and hurt after disagreement with their clients, and can even end up doubting their competence (Coutinho et al., 2011). Not only this, but it is well-documented that conflict will return if it is not effectively addressed […]
Collateral work with parents is a widely adopted practice among child psychotherapists. In the early days of child analysis, parents were not necessarily involved in the child’s treatment, it is now widely believed that work with parents can enhance the effectiveness of child psychotherapy treatment, enabling the changes that take place within the therapy room […]
Do you trust us right now? This question matters, because by opening this article, you have begun a kind of relationship with us. It’s a strange and asynchronous relationship, to be sure; while the first author is writing from her laptop on a gloriously sunny day in Lake Macquarie, Australia, the other authors are contributing […]
While all psychotherapists aspire to practice ethically, this can at times prove challenging. It may seem at first glance that practicing ethically means simply following the ethics code of one’s profession. While this is a good place to start, unfortunately this is not sufficient for ensuring ethical practice. There are several reasons for this: 1. […]
As psychotherapists, we face the difficult task of understanding a person’s presenting psychological problems, conceptualizing how their thoughts, behaviors, and emotions interact to produce psychological distress, and choosing intervention techniques accordingly. Typically, clinicians use DSM criteria to assign patients one or more diagnostic labels, which theoretically should inform the treatment approach. For example, most cognitive […]
Homeless and vulnerable individuals experience higher rates of mental health difficulties (National Institute of Mental Health, 2017) and are less likely to receive mental health care than the general population. Many of them meet criteria for multiple chronic psychological and medical morbidities (for example, severe mental illness, substance misuse, and diabetes) in addition to facing […]
Psychotherapy as a field is no stranger to controversy, so let’s start with where we all agree. If you are a member of Division 29, chances are you believe in the mission of this organization which is to make the benefits of psychotherapy accessible to all. Next, we may agree that individuals with mental health […]
Attending to client background, lived experiences, and interactions with mental health systems is essential to provide competent and effective care. As psychotherapists, we are well aware of the importance of the common factors and do our best to establish a strong working relationship with our clients to help them thrive. The last thing we want […]
Treatment Feedback and Success Monitoring Treatment Success Measuring the success of treatment can involve many criteria, one being change on some outcome (e.g., psychiatric distress) to normal or improved levels (Kazdin, 2016; Lambert, 2015). Wampold (2015) noted that routine outcome monitoring (ROM) and its feedback to clinicians is now well-supported and should be adopted wherever […]
Background Thousands of clinical trials and naturalistic studies have now been conducted on the effects of psychotherapy. Reviews of this research have shown that about 75% of those who enter treatment in clinical trials show some benefit (Lambert, 2013). This finding generalizes across a wide range of disorders except for severe biologically based disturbances (e.g., […]