While we know that psychotherapy works, there is hearty debate about what makes it work. In the past, rival arguments have maintained that psychotherapy proves effective because of the treatment approach, patient contributions, or the therapeutic relationship. Psychotherapy Skills and Methods That Work argues that clinical skills and methods also play a crucial role and that what therapists do has major consequences for improving practice. Psychotherapy Skills and Methods That Work is the result of a multiyear, interorganizational Task Force commissioned to identify, compile, and disseminate the research evidence and clinical practices on psychotherapist skills and methods used across theoretical orientations. Edited by renowned scholars Clara E. Hill and John C. Norcross, this book provides original research reviews on the effectiveness of 27 specific psychotherapy skills and methods, including affirmation, self-disclosure, role induction, between-session homework, empathic reflections, mindfulness and acceptance, emotion regulation, and cognitive restructuring. Each chapter on a therapy skill or method features clinical examples, diversity considerations, training implications, and bulleted therapeutic practices, while the final chapter summarizes the research evidence for the effectiveness of these skills/methods and emphasizes implications for clinical training and practice. Forcefully demonstrating what therapists do to help clients change and live more effective lives, Psychotherapy Skills and Methods That Work will serve as a go-to guide for psychotherapy practitioners of all persuasions and professions, as well as graduate students and psychotherapy researchers.

This book examines the training and supervision of psychotherapists, with a focus on psychotherapy efficacy and key issues facing psychotherapy training programs today. While some therapists are more effective than others, good training and supervision can provide all clinicians with the skills and tools to become effective practitioners. Considerable research has shown the broad efficacy of psychotherapy, but there are still many clients who do not fully benefit from therapy, some who don't benefit at all, and even some who get worse as a consequence of therapy. The overall goal of training and supervision, and efforts to study these practices, should be to enhance the current degree of effectiveness that has been reached in psychotherapy. This book offers innovative knowledge on how to better understand and improve training by relying on the reflections, research discoveries, and collaborative work of psychotherapy scholars who represent a diversity of theoretical orientations, methodological expertise, and levels of experience.

In this fifth edition of her best‑selling textbook, Clara Hill presents an updated model of essential helping skills for undergraduate and first‑year graduate students. Hill’s model consists of three stages—exploration, insight, and action—in which helpers guide clients in exploring their thoughts and feelings, discovering the origins and consequences of maladaptive thoughts and behaviors, and acting on those discoveries to create positive long‑term change.   This book synthesizes the author’s extensive clinical and classroom experience into an easy‑to‑read guide to the helping process. Aspiring helping professionals will learn the theoretical principles behind the three‑stage model and fundamental clinical skills for working with diverse clients. Hill also challenges students to think critically about the helping process, their own biases, and what approach best aligns with their therapeutic skills and goals.   New to this edition are: detailed guidelines for developing and revising case conceptualizations, expanded coverage of cultural awareness, updated case examples that reflect greater diversity among clients and helpers, and additional strategies for addressing therapeutic challenges.

Some therapists are more effective than others, that much is clear; why they are more effective is less clear. Editors Louis Castonguay and Clara Hill have gathered a panel of expert researchers and practitioners from diverse theoretical backgrounds to answer this complicated question. Synthesizing the rich literature on therapist effects in this comprehensive volume, they explore how various effects can help or hinder clients in therapy. They then propose practical strategies that mental health practitioners can use to improve their own effectiveness. Castonguay, Hill, and their contributors first lay the empirical foundations for understanding therapist effects and why they are important. They also acknowledge the massive variability that exists among therapists and the complexities of studying therapist effects. Drawing from this fundamental knowledge, they then carefully examine specific therapist characteristics, attitudes, and skills that are relevant in any therapeutic setting. Topics include: therapists' responsiveness, presence, attachment, and technical interventions cultural factors negative emotions humor creativity Exciting new studies about therapist effects in the treatment of specific disorders, including depression and generalized anxiety, are also presented. The closing chapters translate the book's general themes and takeaways into broader applications for research, intervention, training, and policy, including the role of routine outcome monitoring.

The brief, practical texts in the Essentials of Qualitative Methods series introduce social science and psychology researchers to key approaches to capturing phenomena not easily measured quantitatively, offering exciting, nimble opportunities to gather in-depth qualitative data. In this volume, Clara E. Hill and Sarah Knox describe consensual qualitative research (CQR), an inductive method characterized by open-ended interview questions, small samples, a reliance on words over numbers, the importance of context, an integration of multiple viewpoints (for example, the consensus of the research team and auditors), and a high emphasis on rigor and replicability. CQR is especially well suited to research that requires rich descriptions of inner experiences, attitudes, and convictions, and is therefore widely used by psychotherapy researchers. About the Essentials of Qualitative Methods book series: Even for experienced researchers, selecting and correctly applying the right method can be challenging. In this groundbreaking series, leading experts in qualitative methods provide clear, crisp, and comprehensive descriptions of their approach, including its methodological integrity, and its benefits and limitations. Each book includes numerous examples to enable readers to quickly and thoroughly grasp how to leverage these valuable methods.

Working with dreams in therapy can help clients establish a focus and reach core issues quickly, and can play an important clinical role in both brief and long-term therapeutic relationships. This accessible volume integrates the latest research on sleep and dreaming with a cognitive-experiential psychotherapeutic perspective, providing a comprehensive guide to dream interpretation. In clear, jargon-free prose, elucidated by extensive case material, the author presents a three-stage model of dream interpretation based on the premises that dreams reflect waking life, that their meaning is best understood in a collaborative effort between client and therapist, and that both cognitions and emotions are important in this process. An Appendix contains a reproducible, self-guided manual on dream interpretation featuring step-by-step instructions and worksheets. This Appendix is an ideal resource for therapists to use with clients.

Corrective experiences are events that challenge one's fear or expectations and lead to new outcomes. They are often facilitated by a skilled therapist as a breakthrough in the client's efforts to engage in new behaviors, adopt more healthy ways of relating to others, develop a more positive view of self, or feel previously unacceptable feelings. As such, corrective experiences play a central role in transformative processes fostered in different forms of psychotherapy. Yet despite their playing such a crucial role in therapy, there has been scant research and theoretical attention devoted to the nature of corrective experiences, what therapeutic mechanisms trigger them, or their consequences for positive outcomes. Veteran psychotherapy scholars Louis Castonguay and Clara Hill team up again for this comprehensive look at corrective experiences across the main psychotherapeutic approaches. Presented in two parts, this edited volume brings together leading scholar- practitioners to map out the theoretical bases of corrective experiences (Part I) and new research on transformative events across various client perspectives, different psychotherapeutic schools, and treatments for specific clinical problems, such as generalized anxiety disorder and anorexia nervosa (Part II). Written for the therapist as well as the clinical researcher, Transformation in Psychotherapy provides conceptually sophisticated and clinically rich perspectives of the process of change that will appeal to scholars and graduate students specializing in psychotherapy practice and research.