Dr. Bruce E. Wampold discusses the essential aspects of effective therapy.

What is it that makes some therapists so much more effective than others, even when they are delivering the same evidence-based treatment? This instructive book identifies specific interpersonal skills and attitudes--often overlooked in clinical training--that facilitate better client outcomes across a broad range of treatment methods and contexts. Reviewing 70 years of psychotherapy research, the preeminent authors show that empathy, acceptance, warmth, focus, and other characteristics of effective therapists are both measurable and teachable. Richly illustrated with annotated sample dialogues, the book gives practitioners and students a blueprint for learning, practicing, and self-monitoring these crucial clinical skills.

This book identifies which characteristics make therapists more or less effective in their work and proposes guidelines to improve their effectiveness.

In this 10th Anniversary text, Thomas M. Skovholt and Len Jennings paint an elaborate portrait of expert or "master" therapists. The book contains extensive qualitative research from three doctoral dissertations and an additional research study conducted over a seven-year period on the same ten master therapists. This intensive research project on master therapists, those considered the "best of the best" by their colleagues, is the most extensive research on high-level functioning of mental health professionals ever done. Therapists and counselors can use the insights gained from this book as potential guidelines for use in their own professional development. Furthermore, training programs may adopt it in an effort to develop desirable characteristics in their trainees. Featuring a brand new Preface and Epilogue, this 10th Anniversary Edition of Master Therapists revisits a landmark text in the field of counseling and therapy.

The second edition of The Great Psychotherapy Debate has been updated and revised to expand the presentation of the Contextual Model, which is derived from a scientific understanding of how humans heal in a social context and explains findings from a vast array of psychotherapies studies. This model provides a compelling alternative to traditional research on psychotherapy, which tends to focus on identifying the most effective treatment for particular disorders through emphasizing the specific ingredients of treatment. The new edition also includes a history of healing practices, medicine, and psychotherapy, an examination of therapist effects, and a thorough review of the research on common factors such as the alliance, expectations, and empathy.

The authors present their empirically based model of therapeutic presence, along with practical, experiential exercises for cultivating presence.

Grounded in over 50 years of outcome research, this comprehensive textbook focuses on outcomes management and the principles and core strategies for delivering competent and effective therapeutic practice. Applicable to all settings and models, the text illuminates four foundational principles of therapeutic practice: a strengths-based framework, collaborative practice, clinician effectiveness, and routine and ongoing outcome-oriented clinical work. The book presents strategies for identifying, evoking, and using client strengths to promote behavioral health. It focuses on the importance of client engagement during initial interactions and describes advanced listening and attending strategies for strengthening the clinical alliance. A chapter titled “Matching and Classes of Interventions” examines important processes for increasing client fit and improving treatment outcome. Clinical dialogues, vignettes, sample questions, anecdotes, practice exercises, printable forms, and online resources help to reinforce content. An appendix provides additional insights into outcome measures, graphs, and charts covered within the book, and a robust instructor packet includes an instructor’s manual, PowerPoint slides, a test bank, and student exercises. Key Features: Describes current research and practice strategies for tracking therapeutic effectiveness Underscores the fundamental principles and core strategies for delivering effective therapy Provides specific, evidence-based ways to improve the benefit of therapy and therapist effectiveness Presents strategies for identifying, evoking, and using client strengths to promote behavioral health Delivers proven methods for monitoring client progress Includes clinical dialogues, vignettes, sample questions, practice exercises, printable forms, and online resources Provides instructor’s manual, PowerPoint slides, and test bank, as well as a free digital ebook