Do you get those letters about the top healthcare providers in your area? At the beginning of the new year, our city's local magazine publishes a list of the top healthcare providers.  It's a big deal.  Organized by location and specialty, the issue contains full-page photos, glossy spreads, and ...
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Growing up, my family had a game we frequently played around the dining room table.  "If you could invite anyone to dinner," it always started,"who would it be?"  Invariably, my father chose historical figures: Abraham Lincoln, Mark Twain, Leonardo Da Vinci.  My mom was more inclined toward the living: ...
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So, how much time do you spend doing paperwork?  Assessments, progress notes, treatment plans, billing, updates, etc.--the lot? When I asked the director of the agency I was working at last week, it took him no time to respond. "Fifty percent," he said, then added without the slightest bit ...
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Each week, I upload articles to the web about how to improve effectiveness. There are a lot to choose from, but here are the top ones read by behavioral health professionals around the world:

• Measures and Feedback 2014

This is the latest version of the most widely-read ...
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Actually, it’s more accurate to say, “Everything is new!”  The International Center for Clinical Excellence is coming up on its fifth birthday!   Since its launch in 2010, the ICCE has become the largest, online community of behavioral health practitioners and researchers in the world.  To celebrate, we are launching ...
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Medication adherence is a BIG problem.  According to recent research, nearly one-third of the prescriptions written are never filled.  Other data document that more than 60% of people who actually go the pharmacy and get the drug, do not take it as prescribed. What's the problem, you may ask?  ...
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Honestly, I don't know why I hadn't noticed it before.  It's not the first time it happened.  Last week, the ICCE held the "Training of Trainers" and "FIT Implementation" intensive trainings in Chicago, Illinois (USA).  Participants came from all around the world--from the northern-most parts of Alaska to the ...
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In June, I spent several days in the air traveling to and from Perth, Australia for a conference.  Too tired to read anymore, I turned on the video system and began watching a program from the Discovery Channel about the North American red fox.  The furry little creatures were shown hunting rodents ...
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Back in April, I blogged about an article that appeared in The Guardian, one of the U.K.'s largest daily newspapers.  Citing a single study published in Denmark, the authors boldly asserted, "The claim that all forms of psychotherapy are winners has been dealt a blow."  Sure enough, that one ...
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The results are not encouraging.  A recent meta-analysis found that public attitudes toward psychotherapy have become progressively more negative over the last 40 years.  The impact on practitioners is staggering.  Between 1997 and 2007, use of psychotherapy declined by 35%.  Not surprisingly, clinicians' incomes also suffered, dropping 15-20% over the last decade ...
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How valuable is clinical supervision to you?  In their massive, long-term international study of therapist development, researchers Orlinsky and Rønnestad (2005) found that "practitioners at all experience levels, theoretical orientations, professions, and nationalities report that supervised client experience is highly important for their current and career development" (p. 188). Despite the ...
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Last week, an article appeared in The Guardian, one of the U.K.'s largest daily newspapers.  "Counselling and Therapy can be Harmful," the headline boldly asserted, citing results of a study yet to be published.  It certainly got my attention. Do some people in therapy get worse?  The answer is, ...
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"What's in a name?" --William Shakespeare A little over a week ago, I received an email from Anna Graham Anderson, a graduate student in psychology at Aarhus University in Denmark.  "I'm writing," she said, "in hopes of receiving some clarifications." Anna Graham Anderson Without reading any further, I knew ...
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What can we therapists learn from the CIA?  In a phrase, "When it comes to making predictions about important future events, don't rely on experts!" After a spate of embarrassing, high-profile intelligence failures, a recent story showed how a relatively small group of average people made better predictions about critical world events than highly-trained ...
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Chief Dan George playing the role of Old Lodge Skins in the 1970 movie, "Little Big Man."  Whether or not you've seen or remember the film, if you're a practicing therapist, you know the wisdom contained in that quote.  No matter how skilled the clinician or devoted the client, "sometimes therapy works, sometimes ...
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Our field is full of good ideas, strategies that work.  Each year, practitioners and agencies devote considerable time and resources to staying current with new developments.  What does the research say about such efforts?  When it comes to the implementation of new, evidence-based practices, traditional training strategies routinely produce only 5% to 30% success rates.  ...
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