Tag Archives: Psychotherapy

Clinical Interviewing, Counseling and Psychotherapy Theory and Practice

A Wiley Website with Info about our Brand New Counseling and Psychotherapy Videos

4 Comments

This spring and summer Rita and I have been working with John Wiley & Sons to produce DVDs to go with our textbooks Clinical Interviewing and Counseling and Psychotherapy Theories in Context and Practice. The Clinical Interviewing DVD is out and the Theories DVD will be available soon. There’s a new website with information about this at: http://lp.wileypub.com/SommersFlanagan/

Image

John reading the new textbooks to his twin grandchildren (who look quite excited about learning how to do psychotherapy).

 

Counseling and Psychotherapy Theory and Practice

Is Solution-Focused Therapy as Powerfully Effective as Solution-Focused Therapists Would Have Us Believe?

2 Comments

[This Blog is adapted from a previous blog posted on psychotherapy.net]

Solution-focused therapy is very popular. But is it effective?

Beginning in the 1980s, solution-focused therapy hit the mainstream and many mental health providers (and third-party payers) continue to sing the praises of its brevity and effectiveness. For example, in a 2009 book chapter Sara Smock claimed, “. . . there are numerous studies, several reviews of the research, and a few meta-analyses completed that showcase [solution-focused therapy’s] effectiveness.”

Really?

Solution-focused counseling and psychotherapy has deep roots in post-modern constructive theory. As Michael Hoyt once famously articulated, this perspective is based on “the construction that we are constructive.” In other words, solution-focused therapists believe clients and therapists build their own realities.

Ever since 2003, my personal construction of reality has been laced with skepticism. That was the year President George W. Bush included 63 references to “weapons of mass destruction” in his State of the Union address (I’m estimating here, using my own particular spin, but that’s the nature of a constructive perspective). As it turned out, there were no weapons of mass destruction, but President Bush’s “If I say it enough, it will become reality” message had a powerful effect on public perception.

From the constructive or solution-focused perspective, perception IS reality. Remember that. It applies to the solution-focused therapist’s view of solution-focused therapy effectiveness.

I recall hearing many presenters tell me that solution-focused therapy is powerful and effective. Or maybe it was powerfully effective. And I recall reading books and articles that similarly referred to the power and effectiveness of solution-focused therapy. Now we could just take their word for it, but I still can’t help but wonder: “What does the scientific research say about the efficacy of solution-focused therapy anyway?”

Here’s a quick historical tour of scientific reality.

  • In 1996, Scott Miller and colleagues noted: “In spite of having been around for ten years, no well-controlled, scientifically sound outcome studies on solution-focused therapy have ever been conducted or published in any peer-reviewed professional journal.”
  • In 2000, Gingerich & Eisengart identified 15 studies and after analyzing the research, they stated: “. . . we cannot conclude that [solution-focused brief therapy] has been shown to be efficacious.”
  • In 2008, Johnny Kim reported on 22 solution-focused outcomes studies. He noted that the only studies to show statistical significance were 12 studies focusing on internalizing disorders. Kim reported an effect size of d = .26 for these 12 studies [this is a rather small effect size].
  • In 2009, Jacqueline Corcoran and Vijayan Pillai concluded: “. . . practitioners should understand there is not a strong evidence basis for solution-focused therapy at this point in time.”

Now don’t get me wrong. As a mental health professional and professor, I believe solution-focused techniques and approaches can be very helpful . . . sometimes. However, my scientific training stops me from claiming that solution-focused approaches are highly effective. Although solution-focused techniques can be useful, psychotherapy often requires long term work that focuses not only on strengths, but problems as well.

So what’s the bottom line?

While in a heated argument with an umpire, Yogi Berra once said: “I wouldn’t have seen it if I hadn’t believed it!” This is, of course, an apt description of the powerful confirmation bias that affects everyone. We can’t help but look for evidence to support our pre-existing beliefs . . . which is one of the reasons why even modernist scientific research can’t always be trusted.  But this is why we bother doing the research. We need to step back from our constructed and enthusiastic realities and try to see things as objectively as possible, recognizing that absolute objectivity is impossible.

Despite strong beliefs to the contrary, there were no weapons of mass destruction. And currently, the evidence indicates that solution-focused therapy is NOT powerfully effective.

 

Counseling and Psychotherapy Theory and Practice

John Dreams About Counseling and Psychotherapy Theories

Leave a comment

One morning, long ago, John woke up in the midst of a dream about having written a theories book. Over breakfast, John shared his dream with Rita. Rita said, “John go sit down, relax, and I’ll sit behind you as you free associate to the dream” (see Chapter 2, Psychoanalytic Approaches).

As John was free-associating, Rita tried to gently share her perspective using a two-person, relational psychotherapy model. She noted it had been her lived experience that, in fact, they had already written a theories text together and that he must have been dreaming of a 2nd edition. John jumped out of his seat and shouted, “You’re right! I AM dreaming about a 2nd edition.”

This profound insight led to further therapeutic exploration. Rita had John look at the purpose of his dream (see Chapter 3, Individual Psychology); then he acted out the dream, playing the role of each object and character (see Chapter 6; Gestalt therapy). When he acted out the role of Rita, he became exceedingly enthusiastic about the 2nd edition. She, of course, accused him of projection while he suggested that perhaps he had absorbed her thoughts in a psychic process related to Jung’s idea of the collective unconscious. Rita noted that was a possibility, but then suggested we leave Jung and the collective unconscious online where it belongs (see the Jungian chapter in the big contemporary collective unconscious of the internet online at ** ).

For the next week, Rita listened to and resonated with John as he talked about the 2nd edition. She provided an environment characterized by congruence, unconditional positive regard, and empathic understanding (see Chapter 5, Person-Centered approaches). John flourished in that environment, but sneakily decided to play a little behavioral trick on Rita. Every time she mentioned the word theories he would say “Yesss!,” pat her affectionately on the shoulder and offer her a piece of dark chocolate (see Chapter 7, Behavior therapy). Later he took a big risk and allowed a little cognition into the scenario, asking her: “Hey, what are you thinking?” (see Chapter 8, Cognitive-behavioral therapy).

Rita WAS still thinking it was too much work and not enough play. John responded by offering to update his feminist views and involvement if she would only reconsider (see Chapter 10, Feminist therapy); he also emphasized to Rita that writing a second edition would help them discover more meaning in life and perhaps they would experience the splendor of awe (see Chapter 4, Existential therapy). Rita still seemed ambivalent and so John asked himself the four questions of choice theory (see Chapter 9, Choice theory and reality therapy):

  1. What do you want?
  2. What are you doing?
  3. Is it working?
  4. Should you make a new plan?

It was time for a new plan, which led John to develop a new narrative (see Chapter 11, Narrative therapy).  He had a sparkling moment where he brought in and articulated many different minority voices whose discourse had been neglected (see Chapter 13; Multicultural therapy). He also got his daughters to support him and conducted a short family intervention (see Chapter 12, Family systems therapy).

Something in the mix seemed to work: Rita came to him and said . . . “I’ve got the solution, we need to do something different while we’re doing something the same and approach this whole thing with a new attitude of mindful acceptance” (see Chapter 11, Solution-focused therapy and Chapter 14, Integrational approaches). To this John responded with his own version of radical acceptance saying: “That’s a perfect idea and you know, I think it will get even better over a nice dinner.” It was at that nice dinner that they began to articulate their main goals for the second edition of Counseling and Psychotherapy Theories in Context and Practice.

Counseling and Psychotherapy Theory and Practice

The Efficacy of Solution-Focused Therapy

Link Leave a comment

The Efficacy of Solution-Focused Therapy

For years I’ve wondered about what the research says about the efficacy of solution-focused therapy. While revising our theories text, I reviewed some of the literature. If you’re interested, I published a short blog about it on psychotherapy.net. Check it out. http://www.psychotherapy.net/blog/title/the-miraculous-or-not-efficacy-of-solution-focused-therapy

Counseling and Psychotherapy Theory and Practice

Reflections on Listening to Irvin Yalom at the ACA Conference

2 Comments

After a few hectic and overstimulating days at the ACA World Conference in San Francisco, I’ve now secured the back table at a Starbucks in Vancouver, WA for brief written reflection. This reflection weaves quotations (and paraphrases) from the great Irvin Yalom into my own personal conference experiences.

My formal conference highlight was watching and listening as NPR’s Craig Windham interviewed Yalom onstage for the keynote. After listening to Yalom’s keynote six years ago, I think the interview format was an ingenious method for capturing a more personal glimpse into Yalom and his writing than a stand and deliver keynote speech.

I especially enjoyed listening to Yalom reflect on his early years. Two statements stand out:

On his career decision-making as a child of Russian immigrants: “We had two choices: We could become a doctor or a failure.”

On his unparalleled greatness within the field of group psychotherapy: “My wife thinks it’s rather ironic that I became an expert in group psychotherapy, because I’m really quite uncomfortable in groups.”

Early in his “speech” Yalom emphasized the importance of counselors to the field of psychotherapy. In several ways he made curiously stimulating statements emphasizing (I’m paraphrasing now) that counselors are the future of psychotherapy. As a hybrid counselor and psychologist, I wonder if he would have made the same statements had he been keynoting at the annual American Psychological Association meeting.

My reactions to Yalom’s claim about counselors being the future of psychotherapy are free-ranging like the chickens in our backyard, but here are two:

Yes, I think counselors will be the future of psychotherapy, but only if we’re able to stop getting in our own way . . . And psychologists will undoubtedly be the future of measuring psychotherapy efficacy . . . if they (or we) can manage to focus on issues more meaningful than pharmacology and neuroscience.

For those curious about where Yalom finds his writing inspiration, in response to Windham’s questioning, he disclosed that as a Californian he has mastered the evening hot tub experience. Subsequently, he’s able to write most productively in the morning about “what I’ve learned in the hot tub.” I suspect there’s a bit more to it than that . . . but for those of us aspiring toward more writing greatness it makes for a solid rationale for nightly inspirational hot-tubbing.

On the popularity of his Group Psychotherapy text, Yalom stated: “I suspect it’s because of the stories in the book that I smuggled in . . .”

On his personal experience of fame (keep in mind that about 4K of us had to line up like rock concert fans to see him), he shared his own sort of dissociated imposter feelings:

“There’s a part of this that is very unreal. I don’t have any foundation. My parents were uneducated. They had very little schooling. I don’t have any foundation behind me. It’s a little shaky for me. I compare it to a lily growing in a swamp. There’s no foundation underneath. No matter how successful I am, I question . . . is this really me. Am I really successful?”

As an existential psychotherapist, it’s not surprising that Yalom believes deeply in helping clients pursue meaning. This is where it gets personal for all of us. He said, “Cancer cures psychoneurosis” and that “Life cannot be postponed.” Over the years he has helped many clients focus on their regrets—which often translate into moments when they weren’t able to face life and life fully in the moment. But we shouldn’t mistake Yalom’s live-in-the-moment philosophy for old-fashioned California hot-tub hedonism.  Yalom’s version of living in the moment is at once emotional AND intellectual; it is inspirational AND intentional.

Yalom also said that “Storytelling . . . may be the very best way I can teach.” Lucky for me I’ve gathered a few teaching stories over the years. Sometimes a combination of reality and my own constructive fiction, at this ACA I had a chance to share many stories. First, in a six hour pre-conference Learning Institute on Wednesday attended by 32 fabulous counselors, and later in an ACA-sponsored Friday session on Connecting and Working Effectively with Challenging Youth attended by about 200. In terms of reaping my own share of attention and praise, this was perhaps my best ACA conference ever.

But then Sunday morning comes. And when I awaken, what grand thoughts trickle into my consciousness? Do I think of the 25 people who lined up to have me sign copies of “Tough Kids, Cool Counseling?” Do I lie on the floor of my high-school educated parents home—where I’ve stopped for a short visit—feeling smug satisfaction about the glory I felt when Craig Windham of NPR fame also stood in line to have me sign a book FOR HIM. Do I reflect on the sweet and ego-boosting comments he shared with me about my work?

Nope. Nothing so grand knocks on the door of my early morning awareness. Instead, I’m transported back to a moment when, immediately after speaking to 200 conference attendees and spontaneously signing a couple books and receiving repeated praise from participants, a bold young woman approached me. She had attended BOTH my six hour workshop AND my 90 minute talk . . . and so forgive me my anticipation of praise as I looked into her eyes. But instead, she tells me that she’s not sure she learned anything from the six hour workshop. My well-practiced response is to welcome the criticism, while fending off disappointment and defensiveness. I feel precariously situated on my own lily pad. She goes on to explain that she’d “accidentally” gotten stuck in the 90 minute presentation and that based on what I’d talked about in there she thought I’d want the constructive feedback. “Of course I do,” I say . . . “Of course I do . . . and thank you very much for that.”

This is the stinging mantra to which I awaken this lovely and cloudy Sunday morning. A mantra of self-doubt . . . of possible regret . . . of wondering what I did wrong . . . of how I might improve myself.

Which brings me back to one of my favorite Yalom quotations (from his Group Psychotherapy text) about universality:

“During my own 600-hour analysis I had a striking personal encounter with the therapeutic factor of universality . . . I was very much troubled by the fact that, despite my strong positive sentiments, I was beset with death wishes for [my mother], as I stood to inherit part of her estate. My analyst responded simply, “That seems to be the way we’re built.” That artless statement offered not only offered considerable relief but enabled me to explore my ambivalence in great depth.” (p. 7)

Thank you Dr. Yalom for helping me and many others more deeply understand ambivalence, regret, self-doubt, personal meaning, death, and many of the other interesting ways the human psyche is built. And thank you, bold young woman, for providing me with hot-tub-free grist for my morning therapeutic writing mill.

Counseling and Psychotherapy Theory and Practice, Personal Reflections, Therapy with Adolescents

Flaws in the Satanic Golden Rule

9 Comments

summer-13-long-shadow

Nearly always I learn tons of good stuff from my adolescent clients. A few years ago I learned what “Macking” meant. When I asked my 16-year-old Latino client if it meant having sex (I gently employed a slang word while posing my question), his head shot up and he made eye contact with me for the first time ever and quickly corrected me with a look of shock and disgust. “Macking means . . . like flirting,” he said. And as he continued shaking his head, he said, “Geeze. You’re crazy man.”

The next half hour of counseling was our best half hour ever.

I’m not advocating using the F-word or being an obtuse adult . . . just pointing out how much there is to learn from teenagers.

More recently I learned about the Satanic Golden Rule. A 17-year-old girl told me that it goes like this: “Do unto others as they did unto you.”

Now that’s pretty darn interesting.

Ever since learning about the Satanic Golden Rule I’ve been able to use it productively when counseling teenagers. The Satanic Golden Rule is all about the immensely tempting revenge impulse we all sometimes feel and experience. It’s easy (and often gratifying) to give in to the powerful temptation to strike back at others whom you think have offended you. Whether it’s a gloomy and nasty grocery cashier or someone who’s consistently arrogant and self-righteous, it’s harder to take the high road and to treat others in ways we would like to be treated than it is to stoop to their level to give them a taste of their own medicine.

There are many flaws with the Satanic Golden Rule . . . but my favorite and the most useful for making a good point in counseling is the fact that, by definition, if you practice the Satanic Golden Rule, you’re giving your personal control over to other people. It’s like letting someone else steer your emotional ship. And to most my teenage clients this is a very aversive idea.

After talking about the Satanic Golden Rule many teenage clients are more interested in talking about how they can become leaders. . . leaders who are in control of their own emotions and who proactively treat others with respect.

An excellent side effect of all this is that it also inspires me to try harder to be proactively respectful, which helps me be and become a better captain of my own emotional ship.

Counseling and Psychotherapy Theory and Practice

Reflections on Magic

6 Comments

I have a former graduate student (you know who you are) who always talks about using magic. If she wants something to work out a certain way, she simply “casts a spell” to make things right. Of course, like most of us, she expertly avoids paying attention to evidence refuting her magical abilities, while studiously attending to moments when it appears her spells have somehow affected reality.

This was all in good fun. We were driving many miles back and forth to an internship site at Trapper Creek and in some ways her spells were designed to counter my tendency to construct a firm deterministic viewpoint. Although I agree there are many mysteries in life and that there’s likely room for magic, I get quickly impatient with too many attributions about magic, miracles, past lives, and sinister ghosts in the halls of the female dorm at Trapper Creek Job Corps.

Despite my general avoidance of magical thinking, I find myself very intrigued with this old quotation of Freud’s that Steven de Shazer turned into a book title:

“Words were originally magic and to this day words have retained much of their ancient magical power. By words one person can make another blissfully happy or drive him [or her] to despair . . . . Words provoke affects and are in general the means of mutual influence among men [or women].”

I do think words have powerful influence . . . but it’s equally true that what we don’t say—the nonverbal, and listening in particular—can be just as magical. All this is a way of introducing the following excerpt soon be published in the 2nd edition of our Counseling and Psychotherapy Theories in Context and Practice textbook as food for thought this Monday morning. Here it is:

The Magic of Person-Centered Listening

Person-centered listening isn’t in vogue in the United States. It might be that most of us are too busy tweeting and expressing ourselves to dedicate time and space to person-centered listening. The unpopularity of person-centered approaches also might be related to the prominent “quick fix” attitude toward mental health problems. And so, call us old-fashioned, but we think that if you haven’t learned to do person-centered listening, you’re missing something big.

Years ago, when John was deep into the “Carl Rogers” stage of his development, he decided to create a person-centered video recording to demonstrate the approach. He recruited a volunteer from an introductory psychology course, obtained informed consent, set up a time and a place, welcomed a young woman into the room, and started listening.

Lucky for John, the woman was a talker. It’s much harder to get the magic to happen with nonverbal introductory psychology students.

It wasn’t long into the session when John attempted a short summary of what the woman had said. He felt self-conscious and inarticulate, but was genuinely trying to do the person-centered listening thing: He was paraphrasing, reflecting feelings, summarizing, walking within, and doing all he could to be present in the room and make contact or connect with the “client.” After his rambling summary, there was an awkward silence. John remained silent, trusting that the client knew where to go next. And she did. She cut through the awkwardness with a disclosure of having been sexually molested as a child. John continued listening non-directively as the woman told her story, shed a few tears, and spoke powerfully about her journey toward building inner strength.

The demonstration recording was a huge success . . . except for the fact that the audio was terrible. To hear the powerful disclosure and share in the magic of person-centered process, John had to force his class of 15 graduate students to gather within three feet of the television in perfect silence . . . which was also rather awkward.

The lesson of person-centered listening is that sometimes when you put it all together the client can take you places you never knew existed. There are many things about our clients that we’ll never know unless and until we listen empathically, communicate genuinely, and experience respect for the other person with our heart and soul. As Rogers (1961) said, “. . . the client knows what hurts. . .” and so it’s up to us—as therapists—to provide an environment where clients can articulate their pain and re-activate their actualizing tendency.