On Becoming a Better Therapist

For many therapists, making sense of the latest developments in psychotherapy can feel overwhelming. Every day it seems there are dozens of therapeutic approaches, fully-manualized treatments hot off the press, and twenty more clinical tests meant to measure the precise extent of evolving psychopathologies. In therapy with individual clients, it can often be difficult to know objectively if youre achieving the desired results--or worse, you might know youre not reaching a particular client but have no idea why, and no idea what to do about it. An accumulation of unfruitful encounters over time can weigh on you, despite your good success rate overall. You read as much as you can, you try new approaches, but despite all the hard work you feel as though youre missing something. How can you properly assess your progress and that of your clients? How can you achieve better results, more often, with a wider variety of clients? In short: how can you become a better therapist? In this book, Barry L. Duncan answers these questions and more by applying the ideas described in the bestselling The Heart and Soul of Change, now in its second edition. In this volume, Duncan examines the common factors inherent in all successful therapies and details the importance of the therapeutic alliance as a foundation of effective therapy. He provides clear and compelling advice for how therapists can systematically deal with clients who do not seem to improve over time. This advice is presented as a simple, five-step method of integrating honest, client-based outcome feedback with therapists long-term professional development into a coherent and compelling whole. With lively case examples and unfailing good humor, Dr. Duncans book is essential reading for anyone who seeks to rediscover purpose in their work an