Made it back to Chicago after a week in New Zealand providing training and consultation.  As I blogged about last Thursday, the last two days of my trip were spent in Christchurch providing a two-day training on "What Works" for Te Pou--New Zealand's National Centre of Mental Health Research, Information, ...
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Every year, thousands of students graduate from professional programs with degrees enabling them to work in the field of behavioral health. Many more who have already graduated and are working as a social worker, psychologist, counselor, or marriage and family therapist attend—often by legal mandate—continuing education events. The costs of such training ...
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Today I’m teaching in Christchurch, New Zealand. For the last two days, I’ve been in Nelson, a picturesque coastal town opposite Abel Tasman, working with the local DHB (District Health Board). If you’ve never visited, make a point of adding the country to your list of top travel destinations. The landscape and the ...
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I'm writing tonight from my hotel room at the River Rock Inn in Rockland, Ontario, Canada.  For those of you who are not familiar with the area, it is a bilingual (French & English) community of around 9,000 located about 25 km west of Ottawa. Today through Thursday, I'm working with the ...
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If you are following me on Twitter (and I hope you are), you know the last month has been extremely busy.  This week I worked with clinicians in Peterborough, Ontario Canada.  Last week, I was in Nashville, Tennessee and Richmond Virginia.  Prior to that, I spent nearly two weeks in Europe, providing ...
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Later today, I board United flight 908 on my way to workshops scheduled in Holland and Belgium.  My routine in the days leading up to an international trip is always the same.  I slowly gather together the items I'll need while away: computer (check); european electric adapter (check); presentation materials (check); clothes (check).   And, oh yeah, ...
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Nicholas Cummings, Ph.D. Sometime in late 1986 I wrote a letter to Dr. Nicholas Cummings.  As a then student-member of the American Psychological Association (APA), I was automatically subscribed to and receiving the American Psychologist.  In the April issue, Dr. Cummings published an article, provocatively titled, "The Dismantling of Our Health System: Strategies for ...
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Get ready.  The revolution is coming (if not already here).  Whether you are a direct service provider (psychologist, counselor, marriage and family therapist), agency, broker, or funder, you will be required to measure and likely report the outcomes of your clinical work. Jay Lebow, Ph.D. Just this month, Dr. Jay Lebow, ...
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Several years ago I was contacted by a group of practitioners located in the largest city in the north of the Netherlands--actually the capital of the province known as Groningen.  The "Platform," as they are known, were wondering if I'd be willing to come and speak at one of their upcoming conferences.  The practice ...
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As anyone who follows me on Facebook knows, I get around.  In the past few months, I visited Australia, Norway, Sweden, Denmark (to name but a few countries) as well as criss-crossed the United States.  If I were asked to sum up the state of public behavioral health agencies in a single ...
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Dateline: Mosjoen, Norway The last stop on my training tour around northern Norway was Mosjoen.  The large group of psychologists, social workers, psychiatrists, case managers, and physicians laughed uproariously when I talked about the bumpy, "white-knuckler" ride aboard the small twin-engine airplane that delivered me to the snowy, mountain-rimmed town. They were ...
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For those of you following me on Facebook--and if you're not, click here to start--you know that I was traveling above the arctic circle in Norway last week.  I always enjoy visiting the Scandinavian countries.  My grandparents immigrated from nearby Sweden.  I lived there myself for a number of years (and speak ...
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January 11th, 2010 "Debate over Cognitive & Traditional Mental Health Therapy" by Eric Jaffe The fight debate between different factons, interest groups, scholars within the field of mental health hit the pages of the Los Angeles Times this last week. At issue?  Supposedly, whether the field will become "scientific" in practice ...
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Dateline: Tromso, Norway Place: Rica Ishavshotel For the last two days, I've had the privilege of working with 125+ clinicians (psychotherapists, psychologists, social workers, psychiatrists, and addiction treatment professionals) in far northern Norway.  The focus of the two-day training was on "What Works" in treatment, in particular examining what constitutes ...
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Bruce Wampold, Ph.D. Late yesterday, I blogged about a soon-to-be published article in Clinical Psychology Review in which the authors argue that the finding by Benish, Imel, & Wamppold (2008) of equivalence in outcomes among treatments for PTSD was due to, "bias, over-generalization, lack of transparency, and poor judgement."  Which interpretation of the evidence ...
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Researchers Anke Ehlers, Jonathon Bisson, David Clark, Mark Creamer, Steven Pilling, David Richards, Paula Schnurr, Stuart Turner, and William Yule have finally done it!  They slayed the "dodo." Not the real bird of course--that beast has been extinct since the mid to late 17th century but rather the "dodo bird" conjecture first ...
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