What works in therapy?

More than 150 health professionals will converge on the Royal Newcastle Centre today to ponder the hot question: ‘What works in therapy?’ as part of a workshop with internationally-renowned psychologist and author Scott D. Miller Ph.D.

The workshop has been organised by Hunter New England Health as part of a determined interest in improving allied health counselling outcomes and leading the way in evidence-based care.

Hunter New England Health Senior Clinical Psychologist David Porter said that practitioners can easily be overwhelmed by the numerous competing opinions regarding "what works in therapy".

"Since the 1960s, the number of treatment approaches has exploded, going from 60 to more than 400 at last count," Mr Porter said.

"During the same time period, more than 10,000 books and 100,000 articles and research reports have been published on the subject."

Drawing from a comprehensive review of 40 years of outcome-research, Scott D. Miller will identify core factors responsible for therapeutic success regardless of theoretical orientation or psychiatric diagnosis.

He will then invite participants to focus on strategies and techniques that most effectively realise these core factors in the interests of better outcomes.

Clinical Psychologist Peter McRae added that Dr Miller’s approach boasts very significant outcomes improvements in therapy.

"Dr Miller’s approach very much seeks to amplify and exploit the client’s personal resources, ideas, creativity, knowledge, strengths and so on, rather than impose upon the client the therapist’s wisdom, knowledge and agency," Mr McRae said.

"In contrast to much traditional therapy, there is a strong emphasis on the client as the essential factor in determining whether the therapy works and how well it works.

"Indeed, it would be fair to say that the hot topic raised by the conference is whether listening to the client and allowing them to set the direction, pace and nature of intervention works better than ‘expert’ models of helping where the therapist does these things," Mr McRae said.

Workshop participants will explore these ideas and the research on ‘what works’ will be carefully translated into practical, common-sense and empirically-supported therapeutic skills.

The two-day workshop will be held at the Royal Newcastle Centre on 23-24 November, as well as video-conferencing to Armidale, Tamworth and Taree.