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

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.

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.

Principles of Change constitutes a new approach to evidence-based practice in psychotherapy that goes beyond the traditional and unidirectional dissemination of research, whereby clinicians are typically viewed as passive recipients of scientific findings. Based on an extensive review of literature, it first offers a list of 38 empirically based principles of change grouped in five categories: client prognostic, treatment/provider moderating, client process, therapeutic relationship, and therapist interventions. Six therapists from diverse theoretical orientations then describe, in rich and insightful detail, how they implement each of these principles. The book also offers exchanges between researchers and clinicians on several key issues, including: how similarly and differently change principles are addressed or used across a variety of treatments; and how clinicians' observations and reflections can guide future research. By presenting together these unique yet complementary experiences, Principles of Change will support synergetic advances in understanding and improving psychotherapy, laying the foundation for further collaborations and partnerships between stakeholders in mental health services.

An accessible user's guide to overcoming trauma from the creator of a scientifically proven form of psychotherapy that has successfully treated millions of people worldwide. Whether we’ve experienced small setbacks or major traumas, we are all influenced by our memories and by experiences we may not remember or fully understand. Getting Past Your Past offers practical techniques that demystify the human condition and empower readers looking to take charge of their lives. Shapiro, the creator of EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing), explains how our personalities develop and why we become trapped into feeling, believing and acting in ways that don't serve us. Through detailed examples and exercises readers will learn to understand themselves, and why the people in their lives act the way they do. Most importantly, readers will also learn techniques to improve their relationships, break through emotional barriers, overcome limitations, and excel in ways taught to Olympic athletes, successful executives, and performers. An easy conversational style, humor, and fascinating real life stories make it simple to understand the brain science, why we get stuck in various ways and how to achieve real change.

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.