SCOTT D Miller - For the latest and greatest information on Feedback Informed Treatment

  • About
    • About Scott
    • Publications
  • Training and Consultation
  • Workshop Calendar
  • FIT Measures Licensing
  • FIT Software Tools
  • Online Store
  • Top Performance Blog
  • Contact Scott
scottdmiller@ talkingcure.com +1.773.454.8511

How NOT to Achieve Clinical Excellence: The Sorry State of Continuing Professional Education

September 30, 2009 By scottdm 5 Comments

Greg Neimeyer, Ph.D., is causing quite a stir in continuing education circles.  What has he done?  In several scholarly publications, he’s reviewed the existing empirical literature and found that continuing professional education in heavioral health is not particularly, well, …educational.  Indeed, in a soon-to-be published piece in the APA journal, Professional Psychology, he notes, “While the majority of studies report high levels of participants’ satisfaction with their CE experiences, little attention has been paid to assessing actual levels of learning, the translation of learning into practice, or the impact of CE on actual professional service delivery outcomes.”   Neimeyer then goes on to cite a scholarly review published in 2002 by Daniels and Walter which pointed out that “a search [of the research literature] revealed no controlled studies of the impact of continuing education in the…behavioral health disciplines” (p. 368).  Said another way, the near ubiguitous mandate that clinicians attend so many hours per year of approved “CE” events in order to further their knowledge and skill base has no empirical support.

Personally, my guess is that any study that might be done on CE in Behavioral Health would show little or no impact on performance anyway.  Why?  Studies in other fields (i.e., medicine, flight training) have long documented that traditional CE activities (i.e., attending conferences, lectures, reading articles) have no demonstrable effect.  So, what does work?  The same research that calls the efficacy of current CE activities into questions provide clear guidance: namely, brief, circumscribed, skill-based training, followed by observed practice, real-time feedback, and performance measurement. Such characteristics are, in fact, part and parcel of expert performance in any field.  And yet, it is virutally non-existent in behavioral health.

Let me give you an example of a CE offering that arrived in my box just this week.  The oversized, multi-color, tri-fold brochure boldly asserts a workshop on CBT featuring the “top evidence-based techniques.”  Momentarily setting aside the absolute lack of evidence in support of such trainings, consider the promised content–and I’m not kidding: clinical applications of cognitive behavior therapy, motivational interviewing, cognitive therapy, mindfulness and acceptance based therapies, and behavior therapy.  As if that were not enough, the outline for the training indicates that participants will learn 52 other bulleted points, including but not limited to: why CBT, integration of skills intro practice, identifying brain-based CBT strategies, the latest research on CBT, the stages of change, open-ended and reflective listening, behavioral activiation, acceptance and commitment, emotional regulation and distrss tolerance skills, the ABC technique to promote rational beliefs, homework assignments that test core beliefs, rescripting techniques for disturbing memories and images…and so on…AND ALL IN A SINGLE 6 HOUR DAY!  You say you have no money? Your agency has suffered budget cuts?  No worries, the ad states in giant print, as the same content is available via CD, web and podcast.

Such an agenda defies not only the evidence but strains credulity to the breaking point.  Could anyone accomplish so much in so little time?  Clinicians deserve and should demand more from the CE events they register for and, in many instances, are mandated to attend in order to maintain licensure and certification.  The International Center for Clinical Excellence web platform will soon be launched.  The mission of the site, as indicated in my blog post of August 25th, is to “support clinical excellence through creating virtual clinical networks, groups and clinical communities where clinicians can be supported in the key behavior changes required for developing clinical excellence.”  Members of the site will use a variety of social networking and collaborative tools to learn skills, obtain real-time feedback, and measure their performance.    Anyway, kudos to Dr. Greg Neimeyer for confronting the ugly truth about CE in behavioral health and saying it out loud!

Filed Under: Behavioral Health, Conferences and Training, evidence-based practice, Feedback, ICCE Tagged With: behavioral health, brief therapy, CBT, CE, CEUs, continuing professional education, icce, meta-analysis, psychology, psychometrics

Comments

  1. IBCBET says

    June 2, 2016 at 6:32 am

    finding out what I have to let go of –It’s daily, constantly, momently, over and over, unendingly, noticing in examen what is my “baggage” … those inordinate, unnecessary, silly-to-keep, foolish, distracting, danger-to-my-spirit, unhealthy, sneaky attachments.

    Reply
  2. Jacqueline Hogan says

    October 26, 2016 at 9:37 am

    I agree. I often experienced the same poor training that was accepted as CPD points with the AASW. I have gained more knowledge and practical application strategies from many online resources. Some of the training were extremely expensive and did not deliver what they were marketing. Often very underwhelming. However, I would always, make it my mission to come out of training, with at least one take away. And believe me, that was often quite a treasure hunt.

    Reply
  3. Lori says

    December 6, 2016 at 6:58 pm

    I couldn’t agree more. What does a CEU even mean anymore? I don’t know where to look to get quality CEUs. How can I continue my career if I can’t be sure I’m getting appropriate training? It’s up to us…the counselors of today…to make the counselors of tomorrow…better. WE ARE THE FUTURE!

    Reply
  4. scottdm says

    January 25, 2018 at 1:53 pm

    Actually, what I’ve said is that there is no evidence attending CEU events improves outcomes. More, given how such training is selected and delivered, I’m skeptical there will ever be evidence.

    Reply

Trackbacks

  1. An open letter to my students VII: What’s the purpose of a Doctorate? (or; becoming a therapist- the first few years) – Encountering Change says:
    January 22, 2018 at 5:19 pm

    […] The key is deliberate practice and feedback. I cannot tell you which trainings to go to. Some, like Scott Miller, say that CEU training has no effect on clinical skill. I still believe EFT is a step above other […]

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *


The reCAPTCHA verification period has expired. Please reload the page.

SEARCH

Subscribe for updates from my blog.

loader

Email Address*

Name

Upcoming Training

Oct
01

Training of Trainers 2025


Nov
20

FIT Implementation Intensive 2025

FIT Software tools

FIT Software tools

LinkedIn

Topics of Interest:

  • behavioral health (5)
  • Behavioral Health (112)
  • Brain-based Research (2)
  • CDOI (14)
  • Conferences and Training (67)
  • deliberate practice (31)
  • Dodo Verdict (9)
  • Drug and Alcohol (3)
  • evidence-based practice (67)
  • excellence (63)
  • Feedback (40)
  • Feedback Informed Treatment – FIT (246)
  • FIT (29)
  • FIT Software Tools (12)
  • ICCE (26)
  • Implementation (7)
  • medication adherence (3)
  • obesity (1)
  • PCOMS (11)
  • Practice Based Evidence (39)
  • PTSD (4)
  • Suicide (1)
  • supervision (1)
  • Termination (1)
  • Therapeutic Relationship (9)
  • Top Performance (40)

Recent Posts

  • Agape
  • Snippets
  • Results from the first bona fide study of deliberate practice
  • Fasten your seatbelt
  • A not so helpful, helping hand

Recent Comments

  • Dr Martin Russell on Agape
  • hima on Simple, not Easy: Using the ORS and SRS Effectively
  • hima on The Cryptonite of Behavioral Health: Making Mistakes
  • himalaya on Alas, it seems everyone comes from Lake Wobegon
  • himalayan on Do certain people respond better to specific forms of psychotherapy?

Tags

addiction Alliance behavioral health brief therapy Carl Rogers CBT cdoi common factors conferences continuing education denmark evidence based medicine evidence based practice Evolution of Psychotherapy excellence feedback feedback informed treatment healthcare holland icce international center for cliniclal excellence medicine mental health meta-analysis Norway NREPP ors outcome measurement outcome rating scale post traumatic stress practice-based evidence psychology psychometrics psychotherapy psychotherapy networker public behavioral health randomized clinical trial SAMHSA session rating scale srs supershrinks sweden Therapist Effects therapy Training