Becoming a Master Therapist: A Deliberate Practice Approach

Tori (Victoria) Olds, Ph.D., Licensed Psychologist As a psychologist my goal is to help clients learn to be with themselves, and to be with others, in a healthier, more fulfilling way. My approach is very engaging and experiential, drawing on mindfulness-based approaches like AEDP, PACT, and Somatic Experiencing. I typically guide clients in slowing down and “being with” themselves more fully and without shame. I try to template this level of attentiveness through my own emotional engagement and respect for my clients and their experience. In this way, clients and I can collaborate in an atmosphere of openness and safety to address whatever is on their hearts or minds.

Charlotte Howard, Ph.D., Licensed Psychologist
& Certified Group Psychotherapist I attended Middlebury College in Vermont and was one of two people granted permission to create my own major, which I called “Therapy as a Synthesis of Mind, Body, Spirit, & Sense of Place.” This major combined modern dance, environmental studies, literature, psychology, and religion, providing a foundation for my holistic and multidimensional therapy approach. I received a full fellowship to graduate school in Counseling Psychology, only awarded to a handful of incoming graduate students at the University of Iowa. While receiving my doctorate I taught movement improvisation and Authentic Movement, a therapeutic movement form, in the dance department. I also taught Developmental Psychology and saw clients for therapy in several schools and Universities, and one Women’s Resource & Action Center.

My internship was at the University of Texas Counseling & Mental Health Center working with college and graduate students and taking referrals from the physicians at the Health Center to address physical health issues that are tied to mental health, such as eating disorders, headaches, tension, panic attacks, digestive problems (such as irritable bowel syndrome), sleep disorders, and chronic pain.  I also led a technique-based group for reducing social anxiety and stress. In addition to my Ph.D., I also received 5 years of training in holistic healing at the Jaffe Institute for Spiritual & Medical Healing. This training provides the basis for the existential work I do, as well as allowing me to easily incorporate clients’ spiritual lives into their healing process when they request it.

We will explore the central role of therapeutic presence in helping the client shift from avoidance toward engagement…whether that be engagement in their deeper self, their emotions, their relationships, or with the resources they need to stand in reality. We will unpack the various aspects of therapeutic presence, particularly the importance of embodying the two poles of warmth and strength. When the therapist exhibits both warmth and strength, the security this creates supports the client in coming into wholeness and taking risks.

 

We will explore the importance of developing integration in our nervous system as a therapist. We will discuss why our capacity to maintain intrapersonal, as well an interpersonal, integration is key for the therapy to unfold. We will also explore various avenues toward developing integration, such as the use of self-compassion, mindfulness, and engagement in healing work to overcome our own experiential avoidance. Some practical advice will be given in terms of finding the most healing therapeutic experiences for ourselves as clients–something that can be hard to come by.

 

We will explore the importance of therapeutic focus. There is strong research that focused treatments get better results than non-focused (meandering) treatments. While short-term, structured treatments have an edge in this regard, it is possible to integrate the benefits of therapeutic focus into depth therapy. This is done through the theoretically informed use of mindfulness, where the client is actively guided to contact their inner world. In this chapter we will explore how the false dichotomy between focus and depth can be overcome through an experiential approach to therapy that taps into the benefits of both.

 

We will explore the importance of developing a capacity to work effectively with client resistance and foster a relationship characterized by collaboration. We will explore the difference between the attachment system and the collaborative behavioral system, the latter which draws upon the client’s adult functioning and allows the therapy to be a collaboration between equals. We will also explore how working with anxiety is an important part of minimizing resistance, as is using interpersonal skills such as clear communication, non-defensiveness, and curiosity.

 

We will explore how the therapist’s commitment to growth and to flexibly meeting their clients needs powerfully predicts outcomes, as demonstrated by the supershrink research. This research studies what separates some clinicians from others in terms of results, and the bottom line is when therapists can approach their work with humility, a sensitivity to client engagement, a capacity to make shifts as needed, and the willingness to put in work between sessions, they get better outcomes. The fact that clinicians who try harder, do better, begs the question, “how does one try harder?” This is where deliberate practice comes in as a way of approaching growth that is experiential, embodied, and focused on actual skill development. Research shows that when therapists take their learning beyond simply cognitive understanding and actually regularly practice their skills–in the same way a pianist would practice scales–they get better results.

1. Describe how therapeutic presence is key in helping clients move from avoidance toward engagement, which research has demonstrated to be a predictor of positive outcomes.
2. Explain the difference between self and other awareness and why both are important in fostering interpersonal integration in session.
3. Describe how the importance of therapeutic presence can be understood from the perspective of both attachment theory and positive psychology. 

1. Explain why the therapist’s level of neural integration (and the subsequent capacity to stay within the brain’s social engagement system in the face of emotional material), is essential for the work of therapy to progress. 
2. List at least three ways the therapist can develop their capacity to stay integrated and in the social engagement system during session.
3. Identify the process by which the therapist’s capacity for self-compassion is likely to translate into better outcomes for the client. 

1. Explain how mindfulness can be used to bridge the gap between focused and depth therapies and in doing so draw on the benefits of both.
2. Describe why the common factors must be combined with specific factors and techniques in order for therapy to be maximally effective. 
3. Discuss why a theoretically-informed use of mindfulness is essential in helping the client engage in either discovery or reparative work, and why neither is likely to happen in the absence of therapeutic focus.

1. Identify the collaborative behavioral system and outline why it is important to bring online during the therapy process. 
2. Explain why effective management of anxiety in session is critical in minimizing resistance.
3. List the four key skills that are essential in developing a collaborative working relationship with the client. 

1. List the key findings of the supershrink research and what it has taught us about achieving therapeutic excellence.
2. Explain the types of activities therapists who get excellent results tend to do between sessions.
3. Identify deliberate practice and describe how it can be applied to the field of psychotherapy.

If you for some reason are not satisfied with the course you have 14 days to request a cancellation and a refund. Please refer to the policy section for details on how to cancel.

Cost of CEs are $37 and can be purchased at the beginning or end of the program. You will be notified by email at the end of the program with instructions on how to obtain CEs.

Please note: It is the participant’s responsibility to check with their individual state boards to verify CE requirements for their state.

Commonwealth Educational Seminars is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for Psychologists. Commonwealth Educational Seminars maintains responsibility for this program and its content. Psychologists completing this program will receive 7.0 hours of continuing education credits.

Social Workers:

Commonwealth Educational Seminars (CES) is entitled to award continuing education credit for Social Workers. Please visit CES CE CREDIT to see all states that are covered for Social Workers. CES maintains responsibility for this program and its content. Social Workers completing this program will receive 7.0 clinical hours of continuing education credit.

Commonwealth Educational Seminars (CES) is entitled to award continuing education credit for Licensed Professional Counselors/Licensed Mental Health Counselors. Please visit CES CE CREDIT to see all states that are covered for LPCs/LMHCs. CES maintains responsibility for this program and its content. LPCs/LMHCs completing this program will receive 7.0 hours of continuing education credit.

Commonwealth Educational Seminars (CES) is entitled to award continuing education credit for Licensed Marriage & Family Therapists. Please visit CES CE CREDIT to see all states that are covered for LMFTs. CES maintains responsibility for this program and its content. LMFTs completing this program will receive 7.0 hours of continuing education credit.