Just a short entry to highlight recent developments in Sweden... On November 17th and 18th, over 500 politicians, agency directors, and service managers gathered together to discuss "the future of alcohol and drug treatment" in Sweden.  High on the agenda?  Feedback Informed Treatment! Psychologist and ICCE Associate, Gun-Eva Langdahl and the rest ...
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David Mee-Lee, MD     Bill Miller, Ph.D.     Scott D. Miller, Ph.D. Jim Prochaska, Ph.D.                                    Don Kuhl, CEO Whether in the United States or Europe, Asia or Australia, the field of behavioral health is undergoing a period of dramatic change--some would say, "transformation."  At least that's the verdict of the group bought ...
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In December 2009, the International Center for Clinical Excellence was officially launched.  From our booth at the Evolution of Psychotherapy conference, the international web-based community "went live," adding hundreds of members in a few days.  By April, as I reported in my blog, over 1000 clinicians, researchers, policy makers, and adminsitrators ...
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At the recent ACE conference, I had the pleasure of learning from the world's leading experts on expertise and top performance.  Equally stimulating were conversations in the hallways between presentations with clinicians, policy makers, and researchers attending the event.  One of those was Bill Andrews, the director of the HGI Practice ...
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Here's a riddle for you: What do therapists, researchers, case managers, magicians, surgeons, award winning musicians, counselors, jugglers, behavioral health agency directors, and balloon twisting artists have in common? Answer: They all participated in the first "Achieving Clinical Excellence" held last week in Kansas City, Missouri. It's true. The "motley" crew of ...
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You have to admit the phrase “best practice” is the buzzword of late. Graduate school training programs, professional continuing education events, policy and practice guidelines, and funding decisions are tied in some form or another to the concept. So, what exactly is it? At the State and Federal level, lists of so-called “evidence-based” ...
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Staying “up-to-date” isn’t easy in today’s practice environment. In these lean economic times, training budgets are often the first to be cut. On the other hand, trying to separate the “important” from “irrelevant” in our information-rich age can be, as Mitchell Kapor once observed, “a bit like trying to get a drink ...
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“Studies show…” “Available data indicate…” “This method is evidence-based…” My how things have changed. Twenty years ago when I entered the field, professional training, continuing education events, and books rarely referred to research or evidence. Now, everyone refers to the “data.”  The equation is simple: no research = no money.  Having “an evidence-base” ...
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What works in the treatment of people with post-traumatic stress?  The influential Cochrane Collaboration--an "independent network of people" whose self-professed mission is to help "healthcare providers, policy makers, patients, their advocates and carers, make well-informed decisions, concludes that, "non trauma-focused psychological treatments [do] not reduce PTSD symptoms as significantly...as individual trauma ...
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Gary Greenberg certainly has a way with words.  In his most recent article, The War on Unhappiness, published in the August issue of Harper's magazine, Greenberg focuses on the "helping profession"--its colorful characters, constantly shifting theoretical landscape, and claims and counterclaims regarding "best practice."  He also gives prominence to the most robust and replicated finding in psychotherapy outcome research: ...
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Late last year, I blogged about a study being conducted at the University of Pittsburgh by Dr. Jan Pringle, the director of the Program Evaluation Research Unit in the School of Pharmacology and her colleague, Dr. Michael Melczak.  You'll recall, there were two conditions in the study.   In the first, pharmacists--the ...
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September 7, 2010 Chicago, Illinois USA I can't believe it. Summer is over. Kids are back in school.  And, the International Center for Clinical Excellence (ICCE) is celebrating its one year anniversary!  Time passes so quickly. On August 25th, 2009, I blogged about the creation of a web-based community of clinicians using ...
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A few days ago, I received an email from Shirley Galdys, the Associate Director of the Crawford-Marion Alcohol and Drug/Mental Health Services Board in Marion, Ohio.  Back in January, I blogged about the steps the group had taken to deal with the cutbacks, shortfalls, and all around tough economic circumstances ...
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"Hope Transcends" was the theme of the 39th Annual Summer Institute on Substance Abuse and Mental Health held in Newark, Delaware this last week.  I had the honor of working with 60+ clinicians, agency managers, peer supports, and consumers of mental health services presenting a two-day, intensive training on "feedback-informed ...
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It's an idea that makes intuitive sense but is simultanesouly unappealing to most people. I, for one, don't like it.  What's more, it flies in the face of the "self-esteem" orientation that has dominated much of educational theory and practice over the last several decades.  And yet, research summarized in a ...
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Brendan Madden   Scott D. Miller   Jeffrey K. Zeig A little over month ago, I blogged about how the outcome and session rating scales were originally conceived of and developed.  A few days prior to that, I wrote about where the whole idea of using measures to solicit feedback had started.  In both instances, my teachers ...
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