Amateurs have goals.  Experts have a system. Bold statements to be sure, both supported by research on deliberate practice -- the one activity documented to improve clinicians' therapeutic effectiveness. Much is made in the self-improvement and therapy literature about the importance of setting goals.  Unless you've been hiding under a ...
Read More

I have a guilty confession to make.  I really like Kitchen Nightmares.  Even though the show finished its run six L O N G years ago, I still watch it in re-runs.  The concept was simple.  Send one of the world's best known chefs to save a failing restaurant. Each week a ...
Read More

Criticizing umpires is as much a part of watching baseball as eating hotdogs and wearing team jerseys on game day.  The insults are legion, whole websites are dedicated to cataloging them: "Open your eyes!" "Wake up, you are missing a great game!" "Your glasses fogged up?" "Have you tried eating ...
Read More

Take a look at the graphic to the left.  It shows the use of the Outcome and Session Rating Scales (ORS & SRS) from the beginning of this year to the present by users of one of the three , authorized FIT software programs. What do you see? A couple of ...
Read More

It's rarely good news when the phone rings in the wee hours of the morning.  This time, it was a colleague calling to let me know that Rich Simon -- the founder and editor of the Psychotherapy Networker and long time friend -- had died. To say the news came as ...
Read More

Eighty three million, six hundred fifty thousand, thirty seven. Can you guess what this number represents? No, its not the net worth of the latest tech millionaire.  Neither is it the budget of a soon-to-be released Hollywood blockbuster. Guess again. Give up? It's the number of adults in the U.S ...
Read More

Here's an interesting dilemma.   In December 1799, three physicians were summoned to the Mount Vernon estate to treat the former first president of the United States for a sore throat.  The accepted therapy of the day was administered skillfully and competently multiple times.  Several hours later, the president was dead.  Historians agree ...
Read More

I remember exactly where I was on April 4th, 1968 -- in a pool doing laps.  I was a junior member of my hometown's swim team.   I'd barely started when the coach blew his whistle calling the practice to an abrupt halt.  As we toweled off, he told us something ...
Read More

Bad therapy. Are you guilty of it?  A quick internet search turned up only 15 books on the subject.  It's strange, especially when you consider that between 5 and 10% of clients are actually worse off following treatment and an additional 35-40% experience no benefit whatsoever!  (Yep, that's nearly 50%) And what ...
Read More

With the outbreak of the coronavirus, much of mental health service delivery shifted online. Regulations regarding payment and confidentiality were scaled back in an effort to deal with the unprecedented circumstances, allowing clinicians and their clients to meet virtually in order to reduce the spread of the illness.   But ...
Read More

The year is 1846.  Hungarian-born physician Ignaz Semmelweis is in his first month of employment at Vienna General hospital when he notices a troublingly high death rate among women giving birth in the obstetrics ward.  Medical science at the time attributes the problem to “miasma,” an invisible, poison gas believed ...
Read More

One warm, summer June day, Marietta Jaeger, her husband Bill, and their five children packed into their borrowed R.V. for a cross-country road trip touring the American west.  "This was going to be the adventure of a lifetime, a grand family vacation, the one we were going to talk about for ...
Read More

I can remember exactly where I was when I first "met" Swedish psychologist, K. Anders Ericsson.  Several hours into a long, overseas flight, I discovered someone had left a magazine in the seat pocket.  I never would have even given the periodical a second thought had I not seen all ...
Read More

First, the coronavirus outbreak.  Then the lockdown, followed by an ever-rising number of deaths and catastrophic economic fallout -- and just when the tide seemed to be turning, George Floyd was murdered in Minneapolis resulting in nationwide protests and unrest. I don't recall a time in recent memory when events ...
Read More

Imagine having the distinction of being voted one of the top 10 most influential psychotherapists of the 20th Century. Psychologist Don Meichenbaum is that person.  In his spare time, together with Arron Beck and Marvin Goldfried, he created the most popular and researched method of psychotherapy in use today: cognitive-behavior ...
Read More

I love live trainings.  The spontaneity.  The interactions.  The possibilities inherent in learning together.  Each year, for the past 30, I've been out -- generally 40 weeks out of 52 -- providing workshops on feedback-informed treatment and, more recently, deliberate practice.   It's been a gift to work with clinicians and ...
Read More