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Atlanta: Common Therapist Mistakes and the Ethics of Owning Them, Advanced
13 February @ 10:00 am – 5:00 pm
This workshop is an advanced version of the original Common Therapist Mistakes workshop. (Participants do not have to have attended the first workshop to sign up for this one. For those who attended the first workshop, there will be some review, but more emphasis on mistakes related to therapist characteristics, agenda and practice of the recommended strategies).
This workshop will focus on common mistakes that therapists make, when and why we are most likely to make them and strategies to use to avoid making them. Our ethics and our own personal values require us to do no harm; however, several studies have found that 5-20% of people in psychotherapy experience adverse effects and 15-40% don’t get better. Additionally, patients surveyed tend to view adverse effects as more harmful than do their therapists.
So what factors might interfere with our good intentions and skills? All therapists are human, and we all make mistakes. We sometimes give advice when it’s not necessary or find ourselves in power struggles with our clients. When our clients get stuck, we might feel inadequate or label them as unmotivated.
In this workshop, participants will have the opportunity to explore their personality characteristics and narratives that make them vulnerable to making common mistakes. For example, if we ourselves struggle with perfectionism, we may have difficulty receiving feedback from our clients (one of mine). Since these are common mistakes, specific strategies apply and will be practiced. Participants will be given the opportunity to increase insight through experiential learning, such as journaling and imaginal practice, all in the comfort of their own environment.
Reducing common mistakes enables us to increase compliance with ethical codes regarding maintaining competence, monitoring outcomes, respecting clients’ self-determination and avoiding harm. Finally, recognizing the universality of these mistakes enables us to use humor and even poke fun at ourselves a bit.
Learning Objectives
- List at least 10 common therapist mistakes and utilize specific strategies to avoid making each of these mistakes
- Identify the role of the relevant ethical codes in conceptualizing and addressing therapist mistakes
- Increase skill using strategies for when a therapeutic rupture has occurred
- Develop a model for assessing outcomes in psychotherapy
- Describe at least two ways that our own agendas can interfere with progress in therapy
- Identify at least two personal factors that increase the likelihood of making these mistakes
