Doing psychotherapy effectively

the long version

Doing Psychotherapy Effectively proposes much-needed answers to puzzling questions of what therapists actually do when they are effective. Mona Sue Weissmark and Daniel A. Giacomo offer a unique mode of evaluation that focuses not on a particular school of therapy but on the relationship between therapist and patient. Weissmark and Giacomo's approach, the Harvard Psychotherapy Coding Method, begins with the assumption that good therapeutic relationships are far from intuitive. Successful relationships follow a pattern of behaviors that can be identified and quantified, as the authors demonstrate through clinical research and videotaped sessions of expert therapists. Often these behaviors have little to do with the rational, theoretical accounts provided in psychotherapy textbooks. Likewise, positive changes in the patient, observed through client feedback and case studies, can be described operationally; they involve the process of overcoming feelings of detachment, helplessness, and rigidity and becoming more involved, effective, and adaptable. Weissmark and Giacomo explain and ground these principles in the practice of psychotherapy, making Doing Psychotherapy Effectively an accessible and pragmatic work that will give readers a tool for measuring therapeutic effectiveness and further understanding human transformation. The Harvard Psychotherapy Coding Method transcends the differences among psychotherapies by focusing on practice rather than theory. Weissmark and Giacomo provide, for the first time, a framework for understanding successful therapy and a practical guide to achieving effectiveness.