international center for cliniclal excellence – Scott D.Miller

Is Supervision Important to you?

How valuable is clinical supervision to you? In their massive, long-term international study of therapist development, researchers Orlinsky and Rønnestad (2005) found that “practitioners at all experience levels, theoretical orientations, professions, and nationalities report that supervised client experience is highly important for their current and career development” (p. 188). Despite the value most of us place on — read more
What can therapists learn from the CIA? Experts versus the "Wisdom of the Crowd"

What can we therapists learn from the CIA? In a phrase, “When it comes to making predictions about important future events, don’t rely on experts!” After a spate of embarrassing, high-profile intelligence failures, a recent story showed how a relatively small group of average people made better predictions about critical world events than highly-trained analysts with access to classified information. — read more
Do you know who said, "Sometimes the magic works, sometimes it doesn’t"?

Well, do you? It was Chief Dan George playing the role of Old Lodge Skins in the 1970 movie, “Little Big Man.” Whether or not you’ve seen or remember the film, if you’re a practicing therapist, you know the wisdom contained in that quote. No matter how skilled the clinician or devoted the client, “sometimes therapy works, sometimes it — read more
How not to be among the 70-95% of practitioners and agencies that fail

Our field is full of good ideas, strategies that work. Each year, practitioners and agencies devote considerable time and resources to staying current with new developments. What does the research say about such efforts? When it comes to the implementation of new, evidence-based practices, traditional training strategies routinely produce only 5% to 30% success rates. Said another way, 70-95% of training fails — 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
Where is Scott Miller going? The Continuing Evolution

I’ve just returned from a week in Denmark providing training for two important groups. On Wednesday and Thursday, I worked with close to 100 mental health professionals presenting the latest information on "What Works" in Therapy at the Kulturkuset in downtown Copenhagen. The training was sponsored by Solutions, an organization directed by Henrik and Mette Pedersen that… — 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
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