What really works about therapy?
Dr. Scott Miller weighs in
On Friday, May 28, at the Calgary Petroleum Club, Calgary Counselling Centre (CCC) hosted Transforming Behavioural Health: a Breakfast with Dr. Scott Miller and CEO Robbie Babins-Wagner. Dr. Miller took our audience through the stats and figures that prove what elements work in therapy. Not only did he bust myths and misconceptions – even by therapists themselves - he opened the minds of the audience and challenged their current perceptions about therapy.
We were pleased so many community leaders attended the breakfast. Following the breakfast, a smaller group of people attended a “Think Tank” to further pursue the innovations Scott discussed in his presentation.
“Improving your performance starts with knowing your baseline,” says Miller. “You must determine exactly how effective you are as a clinician.”
The transformative issue is most practicing psychotherapists have no hard data regarding their success rates with clients. Even less have any idea how their outcomes compare with any other clinician or with national norms for progress in care. Dr. Miller believes the solution is simple – ask for client feedback on a session by session basis.
At CCC, we monitor and measure real time results with our clients, focusing on how well individuals progress in their counselling. Measuring a client’s level of distress and well being from one session to the next, then measuring the effectiveness of the client/counsellor relationship, gives therapists tools to understand what is working.
“We have learned that using the measures and soliciting client feedback is a new skill counsellors need to learn,” said Robbie in her presentation. “It’s not an intuitive skill. At CCC, we are in the midst of developing a template for training counsellors in the use of measures and the important role that feedback plays in helping clients achieve their goals.”
Counselling research suggests clients are generally under served when in counselling services. Robbie reported the following happening at CCC:
- At CCC using outcome measures, we have reduced the percentage of clients attending just a single session from an industry average of 34 per cent to 20 per cent.
- Research tells us most clients need somewhere between eight and 14 sessions to achieve benefit. At CCC, using outcome measures, we have been able to increase our average number of sessions to 7.84.
Probably the most significant change has been CCC’s ability to handle a 22 per cent increase in requests for service (from 2006 to 2009) without having a client waiting list or an increase in counselling staff.
Dr. Miller conducts workshops and training around the world and has played an important role in helping CCC implement this cutting-edge technique for therapy. He is the founder of the International Centre for Clinical Excellence (ICCE), an international group of clinicians, researchers and educators who are dedicated to promoting excellence in behavioural health services. The ICCE will host the “Achieving Clinical Excellence” conference in October, 2010, in Chicago. For more information go to www.scottdmiller.com
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