The Heart and Soul of Change: Becoming Better at What We Do
Posted in Becoming a Better Therapist on 10/06/2009 05:00 am by Dr. Barry Duncan
Heart and Soul of Change, New Orleans
The conference will be just a stone’s throw away from the French Quarter at the InterContinental Hotel http://www.ichotelsgroup.com/intercontinental/en/gb/locations/neworleans and I am very happy to say that the room rate was negotiated to be a very reasonable $119 per night. Check out the video tour of the hotel and what New Orleans has to offer. We want you to get the most out of your visit, not only with regard to the quality of the presenters and the stellar training opportunity this conference offers, but also your experience of this spectacular city. Consequently, lunch breaks will be a full two hours so that you can explore the amazing culinary experiences awaiting you in the French Quarter. New Orleans is such an historical, festive, musical, culinary, cultural place that you have to experience firsthand to appreciate it.
Another reason this conference is exciting for me is that I will be presenting my five steps to accelerate your development as a therapist that I detail in my new book, On Becoming a Better Therapist due out in March. Here is a brief description. The five steps build on the lessons I’ve learned from incorporating feedback in my work and helping others do it, but also integrates research about therapist development. A pre-requisite is your understanding that you are a primary figure in each client’s ultimate outcome—the client is certainly central, but as the old saying goes, it takes two to tango. Your view of your growth impacts your ability to be vitally involved in the therapeutic process. Collecting outcome feedback begins the process. The first step is to track your cumulative career development and take it on as a project. Proactively monitor your effectiveness in service of implementing strategies to improve your outcomes. Practice the skills of your craft and monitor your results.
Next, deliberately expand your theoretical repertoire and loosen your grip on the inherent truth value of any given approach. Take multiple vantage points on your journeys with clients while you search out different understandings of client dilemmas. Plurality of perspective serves you and your clients. Theoretical breadth enriches the therapeutic process while simultaneously increasing your involvement in and satisfaction with the work. Third and most importantly, pay close attention to your currently experienced growth. Take a step back, review your current clients and consider the lessons you are learning. Empower yourself, like you would your clients, to enable the lessons to take hold and add meaning to your development as a therapist. Articulate how client lessons have changed you and your work, and what it means to both your identity as a helper and how you describe what it is that you do.
Fourth, continuing that theme, reflect about your identity and construct a story of your work that captures what you do as a helper. Continue to edit and refine your identity and accounts of what constitutes the essence of your work—evolve a description that you can have allegiance to but that doesn’t lead to dead ends. Finally, accumulate the gems of your experiences with clients and the gifts of their feedback, and secure them safely in your Treasure Chest. The Treasure Chest is the place to go to escape tough times and reconnect to the work, to why you become a therapist in the first place. It is also the place to record, through your clients and your own narrative accounts, your development as a therapist. To learn more about the five steps, subscribe to CDOIMembers at http://heartandsoulofchange.com/training/cdoi-members/
Bottom Line: If you got into this business, like me and the majority of therapists I meet, because you wanted to help people, you already have what it takes to become a better therapist. It boils down to two things: One is your commitment to forming partnership with clients to monitor the alliance you have with them and the outcome of the services you are providing. The second is your investment in yourself, your own growth and development. Systematic client feedback provides the method for both.