While empirical, scientific research has much to offer to the practice-oriented therapist in training, it is often difficult to effectively engage the trainee, beginning practitioner, or graduate student in a subject area that can often glaze over the eyes of a reader focused on practical work. Most books about psychotherapy focus either on the process of gathering, analyzing, presenting, and discussing research results, or on conducting clinical work. What most of these texts lack is an engaging, accessible guide on how to incorporate research into practice. Research for the Psychotherapist: From Science to Practice fills that niche with an approach that bridges the gap between research and practice, presenting concise chapters that distill research findings and clearly apply them to practical issues. Jay Lebow is an accomplished practitioner and researcher in the fields of marriage and family therapy and integrative psychotherapy. In this book, he offers a focused volume that covers a range of topics. This volume should appeal to psychotherapists and students looking for an accessible, jargon-free guide to utilizing research in practical settings.

Research is a vital and often daunting component of many counselling and psychotherapy courses. As well as completing their own research projects, trainees across modalities must understand the research in the field – what it tells them and how to do it. Breaking down this seemingly mountainous task into easy to swallow pieces, this book will navigate your students through each stage of the research process, from choosing a research question, through the pros and cons of different methods, to data analysis and writing up their findings. Written by leading contributors from the field including John McLeod, Mick Cooper and Tim Bond, each chapter features points for reflection, engaging activities and suggestions for further reading, helping students to engage with all aspects of research. An original graphic narrative runs throughout the book, bringing this complex topic to life in a unique way. Whether embarking on research for the first time or already a little familiar with research and research methods, this unique guide is something counselling and psychotherapy students will turn to continually throughout their research projects.

This textbook provides a guide to the development of a rigorous and creative research-supported practice for students, practitioners, and researchers in counselling and psychotherapy. With an emphasis on critical thinking and “research mindedness”, it introduces practical research skills and links them to self-awareness and critical reflection. Learning how to creatively and effectively use oneself in the treatment process is an essential component in therapy training and this level of self-awareness has long been a neglected area in research – until now. With examples ranging from private therapeutic practice to psychiatric related research, each chapter combines ‘how-to-do-it’ advice with illustrative real-life examples. The authors outline the use of a broad range of research methods, embracing Arts- as well as RCT-based research, and covering qualitative, quantitative, pluralistic and mixed methods approaches. Whether you are engaging with research for the first time or already developing your own research projects, if you are a student at diploma level or taking a Postgraduate research course for counsellors, psychotherapists and counselling psychotherapists, this is essential reading for anyone looking for a book that combines self-awareness with analytical and practical skills.

‘Self research’ is both a therapeutic and a research endeavour that enables the subject of the research to interpret and validate their own data. In Self Research, Ian Law outlines and draws together the theoretical, institutional and practice elements of this work, and offers illustrative examples of how different elements of the methodology can be applied in practice. He proposes a methodology for the practice of self research that is based on an epistemological approach, thereby closing the interpretative gap between the researcher and the researched. Engaging in therapeutic work with those who experience their sense of self as problematic can be transformative in two key respects: it enables them to produce a sense of self which acknowledges that an understanding of one’s self is discursively produced, and it helps locate that sense of self within its historical, political and social context. By setting out the theoretical underpinnings of the process across a range of different contexts, Law develops a methodology for doing ‘talk therapy’, and researching the self that are one and the same. This methodology allows those who are both the subject and object of their own research to have the authority to determine its meaning, relevance and validity. The book will be essential for advanced students of counselling, along with practicing therapists in psychotherapy across different schools of practice.

Research in Psychotherapy is a comprehensive synthesis and assessment of the psychotherapeutic research literature for the use of both researchers and those in clinical practice. It is designed as a general reference work, an instruction guide, and a source of information about specific aspects and problems of research. The book consists of three parts. Part 1 discusses principles and methods of research as they are applied to psychotherapy. It provides general background material and principles to help non-researchers appreciate some of the important problems that are encountered. In Part 2, existing research on the effects of psychotherapy and the determinants and correlates of outcome are clustered and reviewed. Chapters 4 to 7 are concerned strictly with a review and appraisal of controlled studies that were designed to evaluate the effects of psychotherapy. Chapters 8 to 13 deal with a large body of research on various factors associated with therapeutic outcome--method, style, and technique variables; patient, therapist, and time variables. Part 3 is concerned with research on aspects of the therapeutic process and on the effect of many of these same variables on the therapeutic interchange as distinct from the outcome of therapy. Also discussed is research on various therapeutic phenomena and conditions about which so much has been written and so little really known. Research in Psychotherapy was written in the conviction that clinical practice should be influenced by research and that rigorous research that meets acceptable experimental standards can be done on the field of psychotherapy.

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.

Are some therapies more effective than others? How important is the relationship? Which clients do best in therapy? Essential Research Findings in Counselling and Psychotherapy answers these questions and many more, providing trainees, practitioners and researchers with a comprehensive introduction to the latest findings in the field. The book sets out in a jargon-free way the evidence for the effectiveness of therapy and the factors associated with positive therapeutic outcomes. It gives suggestions for further reading, definitions of key terms and questions for discussion, making this an ideal text for use in training. The book is also designed for practitioners who increasingly need to justify their therapeutic work on empirical grounds. Essential Research Findings in Counselling and Psychotherapy gives them the knowledge and confidence to do just that. More than that, it makes research findings accessible and provides information on how to practice counselling and psychotherapy in an effective way.