If you’ve been following me on Twitter, then you know that last week I was touring and teaching in different spots around Europe. First, I presented two days in Copenhagen. Then I keynoted the British Association of Counseling and Psychotherapy Conference in Newcastle, England. Early Saturday morning, I flew from London to Stockholm. My long time friend and associate, Gunnar Lindfelt picked me up at Arlanda airport and drove me back to his lovely home in the city. There, we gorged on smoked salmon, “svensk godies” (small candies, my favorite of which is “skum bananer”–dark chocolate covered marshmellow in the shape of a banana) and Cider–a non-alcoholic fizzy apple drink that is an old time Swedish favorite.
It was Gunnar Lindfeldt, a gifted clinician and expert in the treatment of drug and alcohol problems, who first introduced me to the work of Swedish psychologist Jan Blomqvist. In 1998, Blomqvist published a book entitled, “Beyond Treatment? Widening the Approach to Alcohol Problems and Solutions“ in which he made the provocative argument that common rather than specific factors held the key to effective care. Since writing the book, Jan Blomqvist has continued his research and is currently a full professor at SORAD, the Centre for Social Research on Alcohol and Drugs at Stockholm University.
Anyway, I had the pleasure of meeting with Professor Blomqvist at his home in Uppsala, Sweden this last week. Over homemade spinach soup, freshly-baked bread and cheese, we chatted about the state of the field. The pièce de résistance, however, was hearing about the 2.9 million Swedish crown grant he had just been awarded for a 4 year long study of outcome-informed treatment of alcohol problems, called “Putting the Client in the Driver’s Seat.”
The study to be conducted by Professor Blomqvist will be the largest, most comprehensive, randomized clinical trial on client-directed outcome informed clinical work. A centerpience of the study will be the routine use of the ORS and SRS and provision of feedback in the delivery of treatment services. Importantly, unlike all other studies to date, this project completely avoids claims of “allegiance effects” as no developers of measures or supporters of CDOI are participating. Stay tuned to the “Top Performance” blog for additional updates! While you are waiting, take a moment and read Professor Blomqvist’s provocative take on “addiction” in slide viewer below.
Really thought provoking article. Made me think about the way public perception can be so wide of the mark and the popular media can perpetuate these miscoceptions. That certainly happens here in Australia as well. Scott it sounds like your trip, as well as being intellectually stimulating, was a gastronomic delight.
Scott,
Thanks for sharing the articles about common factors vs. specific txs for specific disorders. To use your analogy, that horse died at least 10 years ago when it became clear that so-called empirically supported treatments (ESTs)that were identified and pushed by the Div. 12 Task Force were not empirically supported after all. Unfortunately,some just can’t believe the horse is dead and so they continue to insist that specific techniques for specific disorders must be the answer! I read that when Trigger (the horse) died, Roy Rogers (the cowboy) had him stuffed. I think we have some horse-stuffing going on out there these days. The horse is dead but stuffing it full of $25 million dollars makes it appear to be still alive. Rollo May once said that American clinicians like “techniques.” We are a frontier nation and we want to “fix things.” It’s no accident that behaviorism flourished in America and that many clinicians continue to worship anything that smacks of mechanistic views of the human being and techniques to fix specific things. Keep up the good work!