Course Description

*This selection is for the Final Exam only. Access to the book, Effective Psychotherapists: Clinical Skills That Improve Client Outcomes, is required to complete the exam. If you already have access to the book, click the "Buy" button above to continue. To order the e-Book from Guilford Press (which enables you to take the course immediately), click here. To order a copy of the paperback book, click here.

This instructive program identifies specific interpersonal skills and attitudes—often overlooked in clinical training—that facilitate better client outcomes across a broad range of treatment methods and contexts. Reviewing 70 years of psychotherapy research, the preeminent authors show that empathy, acceptance, warmth, focus, and other characteristics of effective therapists are both measurable and teachable. Richly illustrated with annotated sample dialogues, the book gives practitioners and students a blueprint for learning, practicing, and self-monitoring these crucial clinical skills.

7 CE credits/hours, 48 questions 

Target Audience

Psychologists | School Psychologists | Marriage & Family Therapists | Mental Health Counselors | Social Workers

Learning Level

Intermediate

Learning Objectives

  • Explain how therapists with low levels of therapeutic skills can actually harm clients rather than merely be ineffective.
  • Summarize how accurate empathy is a reliably measurable and learnable skill that is associated with better client outcomes.
  • Demonstrate how nonjudgmental acceptance is communicated, in part, by what the therapist does not do: disapprove, criticize, disagree, label, warn, or shame.
  • Identify three therapeutic approaches to facilitate positive change.
  • Describe how hope and expectancy are associated with better outcomes.
  • Demonstrate the “how” of offering information and advice so your clients will hear and consider it.
  • List the evidence-based therapeutic interpersonal skills that should be taught early in the training of counselors and psychotherapists.

Sections

  1. 1

    • Statement of Understanding (downloadable/printable)
  2. 2

    • Final Exam Questions (downloadable/printable)

    • Final Exam
  3. 3

    • Evaluation Questionnaire

About the Authors

William R. Miller, PhD

William R. Miller, PhD, is Emeritus Distinguished Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry at the University of New Mexico. Fundamentally interested in the psychology of change, he is a cofounder of motivational interviewing and has focused particularly on developing and testing more effective treatments for people with alcohol and drug problems. Dr. Miller has published over 400 scientific articles and chapters and 50 books, including the groundbreaking work for professionals Motivational Interviewing, Third Edition, and the self-help resource Controlling Your Drinking, Second Edition. He is a recipient of the international Jellinek Memorial Award, two career achievement awards from the American Psychological Association, and an Innovators in Combating Substance Abuse Award from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, among many other honors. The Institute for Scientific Information has listed him as one of the world’s most highly cited researchers.

Theresa B. Moyers, PhD

Theresa B. Moyers, PhD, is Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of New Mexico, where she conducts research on treatments for addictive behaviors, with a focus on motivational interviewing (MI). Her primary interests are identifying the active ingredients of MI as well optimal methods for disseminating it in addictions settings. Dr. Moyers has published more than 35 peer-reviewed articles and has presented on MI and addictions treatment in 16 countries. She is a member of the Motivational Interviewing Network of Trainers. In addition to her academic pursuits, she trains and competes with her border collie in the sport of dog agility.