Continuing Education for Psychologists

DELIBERATE PRACTICE FOR PSYCHOTHERAPISTS
A Guide to Improving Clinical Effectiveness

This text explores how psychotherapists can use deliberate practice to improve their clinical effectiveness. By sourcing through decades of research on how experts in diverse fields achieve skill mastery, the author proposes it is possible for any therapist to dramatically improve their effectiveness. However, achieving expertise isn't easy. To improve, therapists must focus on clinical challenges and reconsider century-old methods of clinical training from the ground up. This volume presents a step-by-step program to engage readers in deliberate practice to improve clinical effectiveness across the therapists' entire career span, from beginning training for graduate students to continuing education for licensed and advanced clinicians.

Tony Rousmaniere, PsyD, is on the clinical facaulty at the University of Washington, Seattle, where he also maintains a private practice.

"This book deals with an underdeveloped field of psychotherapy research, therapist development, in a very unique manner and both very personal and self-disclosing but also related to research evidence. Tony Rousmaniere explains the paths to competence and expertise as a therapist with all its ups and downs using a broad perspective and attracts trainees - and this is specifically striking - to learn from many other fields such as medicine and even the performing arts. This book provides an extremely valuable contribution to the field!"
--Bernhard Strauss, PhD, past-president of the Society for Psychotherapy Research

"This book has important potential. Like Yalom, the book will benefit therapists in training, as well as professional therapists. The first person account is compelling. Deliberate Practice may be a beneficial 'disruption' to traditional psychotherapy training."
--Nick Ladany, PhD, Dean, UC San Diego School of Leadership and Education Sciences

"Despite a hundred years of theorizing and the promulgation of hundreds of treatment methods, evidence-based methods for improving the therapeutic effectiveness have remained elusive-that is, until now. In clear and entertaining fashion, Tony Rousmaniere reviews the latest research and lays out the steps for using deliberate practice to foster continuous professional development."
--Scott D. Miller, PhD, director, International Center for Clinical Excellence

"Research has clearly demonstrated that some therapists are better than others. As for diverse domains of expertise (such as sports, chess, and music), there is also evidence that superior effectiveness is in part due to deliberate practice. Based on his personal journey, as well as clinical and training experiences as a therapist, Rousmaniere describes specific principles, exercises, techniques, and strategies to develop and maintain a committed, repeated, and skill-building engagement toward excellence. Candid, bold, challenging, and constantly tied to clinical reality, this engrossing and innovative book offers creative insights and valuable tools to help clinicians become more effective, irrespective of their theoretical orientation and level of experience."
--Louis Castonguay, PhD, Penn State University; former president, Society for Psychotherapy Research

"In Deliberate Practice for Psychotherapists: A Guide to Improving Clinical Effectiveness, Tony Rousmaniere outlines several issues regarding the development of expertise in psychotherapy based on contemporary learning theory and research. In doing so, Rousmaniere provides a remarkably innovative and valuable contribution to the field of psychotherapy that draws upon observations and methods about the mastery of skills sets from multiple different professions. As such, I believe this book provides incredibly important information for trainees, practitioners, and supervisors across all levels of experience."
--Mark J. Hilsenroth, PhD, Adelphi University

"Some psychotherapists consistently realize better client outcomes than their peers and the data show that they achieve this by having made a long-term commitment to engaging in deliberate practice (DP). But many psychotherapists remain unsure of just what DP is or how they might incorporate it in their own work. Rousmaniere answers these questions in a highly effective and engaging way. He takes the reader along on his own quest to become the best therapist he can and as he does, anchors his observations solidly in the research literature. The result is an essential guide for therapists for using DP to increase their expertise."
--Rodney Goodyear, professor, University of Redlands; emeritus professor of education (counseling psychology), University of Southern California