Psychotherapy Blog

There is a growing movement among therapists to make their therapy outcome data available to prospective clients.

Recent technological advances have allowed for a range of creative new affordable ways to record “picture-in-picture”, so the video shows both the client and therapist. These setups do not require any video editing.

Should couples in distress attempt to change their partner or themselves? Recent research discusses concerns about both of these strategies, and raises an interesting third option. Shreena Hira and Nickola Overall examined 160 couples attempting to change their partner or themselves. As they expected, attempts to change their partner didn’t make either their partner or themselves feel better. Surprisingly, however, a focus on self-change did not consistently help the relationship either. Instead, the researchers discovered that the most beneficial change...

Eating disorders are widely recognized as some of the most challenging psychological diagnoses. I was surprised to learn that they are also the most dangerous: eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of any diagnosis. Many clinicians assume that eating disorders only occur in young women. However, research has shown that the frequency of eating disorders is rising across a wide range of client populations, including men, middle-aged, and the elderly. Regardless of the population you work with, sooner or later you will encounter clients with eating disorders.

Why might a therapist who works primarily with individuals consider studying couples’ therapy? If you work from an attachment perspective, as an increasing number of therapists do, then training in couples therapy may greatly inform and improve your work.

There is a growing movement in psychotherapy towards reading clients’ facial microexpressions and body “tells”.  One of the leaders in this movement is Stan Tatkin, PsyD, who teaches a Psychobiological Approach to Couples Therapy (PACT).  I recently talked with Dr. Tatkin about how he uses microexpressions to enhance couples therapy.

As a psychotherapy training nerd, I’m always looking for good training opportunities.  What’s the most training one can find on a limited time and budget?  I recently talked about this with Carol Odsess, PhD.  Dr. Odsess is a psychotherapy trainer in Albany, California who specializes in EMDR and Energy Psychology.  (www.carolodsess.com)  

How good a therapist are you?

Odds are, you think you’re pretty good. A recent study[i] of 129 therapists found that over 90% self-rated their psychotherapy skills at the 75^th percentile or greater.  All of the therapists rated themselves above the 50^th percentile.

How can our clients pick the most effective therapist? They can’t. There is no industry standard for tracking and reporting psychotherapy outcomes. This won’t last. Regulators and consumers are going to demand public accounting of treatment effectiveness. If I have the right to ask my surgeon for their success rate, then why can’t my clients ask for mine?

Note to readers: This blog is dedicated to exploring new training tools and techniques to help us become better therapists.  May we all become “supershrinks”!

Learning a psychotherapy technique can be like a romantic tragedy.  You go to the workshop, fall in love with the technique (and occasionally the presenter), and go home with fantasies of all your therapy cases getting unstuck.  On Monday morning in your office, however, everything falls apart: ...