Behavioral Health – Page 4 – Scott D.Miller

Holidays and Suicide: Tis’ the Season NOT!

The notion that suicides increase during the holiday season is as traditional as "Santa Claus"–and, according to statistics dating back at least a decade, just as illusory. In fact, research actually shows suicide rates to be the lowest in December! According to Dan Romer, a researcher at the Annenberb Public Policy Center at the University… — read more
The Effects of Feedback on Medication Compliance and Outcome: The University of Pittsburgh Study

A number of years ago, I was conducting a workshop in Pittsburgh. At some point during the training, I met Dr. Jan Pringle, the director of the Program Evalutation Research Unit in the School of Pharmacy at the University of Pittsburgh. Jan had an idea: use outcome feedback to improve pharmacy practice and outcome. Every… — read more
The Evolution of Psychotherapy: Meeting Michael Hoyt

I’m still reeling from the experience in Anaheim this last week. I met so many leaders in the field, heard so many presentations on cutting edge clinical practice–as well as was reminded of some "classic" principles of effective psychotherapy. One of the people I met was colleague and friend, Michael F. Hoyt, Ph.D. Michael and… — read more
Five Incredible Days in Anaheim

From December 9-13th, eight thousand five hundred mental health practitioners, from countries around the globe, gathered in Anaheim, California to attend the "Evolution of Psychotherapy" conference. Held every five years since 1985, the conference started big and has grown only larger. "Only a few places in the US can accomodate such a large gathering," says Jeffrey K.… — read more
Climate Change in Denmark

Hans Christian Andersen, the author of such classic stories as The Ugly Duckling and the Emperor’s New Clothes, once wrote, "Life iteself is the most wonderful fairytale of all." That sentiment is certainly true of my own life. For the last 16 years, I’ve been privileged to travel around the world conducting trainings and providing consultation. Each year, I meet… — read more
Outcomes in OZ III

Dateline: November 28, 2009 Brisbane, Australia Crown Plaza Hotel Pelican Waters Golf Resort & Spa As their name implies, LifeLine Australia is the group people call when they need a helping hand. During the last leg of my tour of eastern Australia, I was lucky enough to spend two days working with Lifeline’s dedicated and talented clinicians on improving… — read more
Outcomes in Oz II

Sitting in my hotel room in Brisbane, Australia. It’s beautfiul here: white, sandy beaches and temperatures hovering around 80 degrees. Can’t say that I’ll be enjoying the sunny weather much. Tomorrow I’ll be speaking to a group of 135+ practitioners about "Supershrinks." I leave for home on Saturday. While it’s cold and overcast in Chicago,… — read more
Outcomes in Oz

Greetings from beautiful Melbourne, Australia! For the next couple of weeks, I’ll be traveling the up and down the east coast of this captivating country, conducting workshops and providing consultations on outcome-informed clinical work. Actually, I’ve had the privilege of visiting and teaching in Australia about once a year beginning in the late 1990’s. Back then, Liz… — read more
Leading Outcomes in Vermont: The Brattleboro Retreat and Primarilink Project

For the last 7 years, I’ve been traveling to the small, picturesque village of Brattleboro, Vermont to work with clinicians, agency managers, and various state officials on integrating outcomes into behavioral health services. Peter Albert, the director of Governmental Affairs and PrimariLink at the Brattleboro Retreat, has tirelessly criss-crossed the state, promoting outcome-informed clinical work and organizing… — read more
Outcomes in Ohio: The Ohio Council of Behavioral Health & Family Service Providers

Ohio is experiencing the same challenges faced by other states when it comes to behavioral health services: staff and financial cutbacks, increasing oversight and regulation, rising caseloads, unrelenting paperwork, and demands for accountability. Into the breach, the Ohio Council of Behavioral Health & Family Service Providers organized their 30th annual conference, focused entirely on helping… — read more
Whoa Nellie! A 25 Million Dollar Study of Treatments for PTSD

I have in my hand a frayed and yellowed copy of observations once made by a well known trainer of horses. The trainer’s simple message for leading a productive and successful professional life was, “If the horse you’re riding dies, get off.” You would think the advice straightforward enough for all to understand and benefit. And yet,… — read more
Achieving Clinical Excellence: The Conference

A few weeks ago, I announced the first International “Achieving Clinical Excellence” (ACE) conference to be held at the Westin Hotel in Kansas City, Missouri on October 20-22nd, 2010. You can now register for this event, by clicking here or on the "Training and Consultation" link to your left. Through a variety of keynote addresses and workshops,… — read more
International Center for Clinical Excellence: Update and Announcement

On August 24th, right here on the "Top Performance" blog, I announced the formation of the International Center for Clinical Excellence. As anyone who has been reading my recent posts or publication knows, my work is evolving; specifically, putting prior research on the common factors, measurement of outcome and alliance, and feedback to work in helping… — read more
How NOT to Achieve Clinical Excellence: The Sorry State of Continuing Professional Education

Greg Neimeyer, Ph.D., is causing quite a stir in continuing education circles. What has he done? In several scholarly publications, he’s reviewed the existing empirical literature and found that continuing professional education in heavioral health is not particularly, well, …educational. Indeed, in a soon-to-be published piece in the APA journal, Professional Psychology, he notes, "While the majority of studies… — read more
Top Resources for Top Performers

Since the 1960’s, over 10,000 "how-to" book on psychotherapy have been published. I joke about this fact at my workshops, stating "Any field that needs ten thousand books to describe what it’s doing…surely doesn’t know what its doing!" I continue, pointing out that, "There aren’t 10,000 plus books on ‘human anatomy,’ for example. There are a handful! … — read more
History doesn’t repeat itself,

Image via Wikipedia "History doesn’t repeat itself," the celebrated American author, Mark Twain once observed, "but it does rhyme." No better example of Twain’s wry comment than recurring claims about specifc therapeutic approaches. As any clinician knows, every year witnesses the introduction of new treatment models. Invariably, the developers and proponents claim superior effectivess of… — read more
International "Achieving Clinical Excellence" Conference

Mark your calendars! The International Center for Clinical Excellence is pleased to announce the “Achieving Clinical Excellence” (ACE) conference to be held at the Westin Hotel in Kansas City, Missouri on October 20-22nd, 2010. K. Anders Erickson, Ph.D., the editor of The Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance and recognized “expert on experts,” will keynote… — read more
Practice-Based Evidence Goes Mainstream

For years, my colleagues and I have been using the phrase "practice-based evidence" to refer to clinicians’ use of real-time feedback to develop, guide, and evaluate behavioral health services. Against a tidal wave of support from professional and regulatory bodies, we argued that the "evidence-based practice"–the notion that certain treatments work best for certain diagnosis–was… — read more
The Evolution of Psychotherapy: Twenty-Five Years On

In 1985, I was starting my second year as a doctoral student at the University of Utah. Like thousands of other graduate students, I’d watched the "Gloria" films. Carl Roger, Albert Ellis, Fritz Perls were all impressive if not confusing given their radically different styles. I also knew that I would soon have the opportunity to meet each one live… — read more
The Debate of the Century

What causes change in psychotherapy? Specific treatments applied to specific disorders? Those in the "evidence-based" say so and have had a huge influence on behavioral healthcare policy and reimbursement. Over the last 10 years, my colleagues and I have written extensively and traveled the world offering a different perspective: by and large, the effectiveness of… — read more
Announcement: Evolving in a new direction

As those of you who have followed my work and blog know, my perspective is evolving. The direction I’m heading builds on all of the work done to date including the common factors, measurement of outcome and alliance, and feedback. Crucially, however, it goes one step further; bridging the common and specific… — read more
Expertise and Excellence: What it Takes to Improve Therapeutic Effectiveness

I wonder what you were expecting to read about when you clicked on the link for my "Something Magical" blog. When the link first appeared about a month ago, I started receiving emails. First, people asked, "Where is it?" Until now, the link took readers to a mostly blank page–except the promise of "more to… — read more
Superior Performance as a Psychotherapist: First Steps

So what is the first step to improving your performance? Simply put, knowing your baseline. Whatever the endeavor, you have to keep score. All great performers do. As a result, the performance in most fields has been improving steadily over the last 100 years. Consider, for instance, the Olympics. Over the last century, the best… — read more
My New Year’s Resolution: The Study of Expertise

Most of my career has been spent providing and studying psychotherapy. Together with my colleagues at the Institute for the Study of Therapeutic Change, I’ve now published 8 books and too many articles and scholarly papers to count. If you are interested you can read more about and even download many of my publications here.… — read more