Latest Episode:
Episode 142 - VBT Study Hall: Client Testimonials and Reviews
Social proof has become a crucial element of consumer decision making in the Internet era. So why don’t the vast majority of therapists ask their clients to give testimonials or leave reviews? We ponder the frustrating tension between psychotherapy ethics codes and literature on marketing in the 21st century, and we do our best to advise therapists about what to do in response to a bad online review.
Episode 140 - VBT Study Hall: What Does “Trauma-Informed” Mean?
Trauma-informed therapy is…what, exactly? And is trauma actually stored in the body, or is that just a clever narrative that a few enterprising gurus have used to sell books and trainings? We dig deep into the research on trauma to answer these questions and more, and Carrie introduces her breakthrough trauma-focused treatment: dog therapy.
Episode 137 - VBT Study Hall: Evaluating Research
How do we know which psychotherapy research is trustworthy? Dr. Alex Williams and Dr. John Sakaluk help us search for evidence in all the logical places: the replication crisis, RCTs, qualitative studies, dolphin therapy, Canadian football, researchers fighting Connor McGregor, and of course, EMDR. This episode is brought to you by MR. BEAR (Meta-analysis, Registered, Big sample size, Experiment, Active control group, Replicated).
Episode 135 - VBT Study Hall: Treatment Planning
What exactly is treatment planning and why do some therapists dread having to do it on a regular basis? This episode is Carrie’s love letter to treatment plans – why they are used, how they can improve therapy outcomes, and why Ben is wrong in his stubborn resistance to writing out a detailed plan for every client.
Episode 133 - VBT Study Hall: Termination
Nothing lasts forever, including therapeutic relationships. Therapy can end in lots of different ways, but what constitutes a good goodbye? We dig into the research on termination and the related ethics codes and come away with a surprising conclusion: firing a client is almost always ethically acceptable.
Episode 131 - VBT Study Hall: First Sessions
What happens in the first session of therapy? More importantly, why do one-third of clients not come back for the second session? We look for answers in the research on client expectations and consider some creative perspectives on increasing first session effectiveness, including a radical idea that clients dropping out of therapy might actually be a positive outcome.
Episode 128 - VBT Study Hall: The Therapeutic Alliance
You’ve already heard that the therapeutic alliance is important to client outcomes, but does anyone actually know why? We dig into the research to figure out if ruptures can be a good thing (yes!), what clients and therapists should know about the therapeutic alliance, and why this topic has been fervently researched over the last half-century.
Episode 126 - VBT Study Hall: Interventions
It seems odd that most therapists – us included – aren’t 100% certain about what constitutes an intervention. Are interventions scripted in-session activities? What about the theoretical orientations themselves? There isn’t one single answer, but interventions aren’t that difficult to understand if you zoom out far enough…and get a little bit of help from ChatGPT.
Episode 124 - VBT Study Hall: Theoretical Orientations
There are over 600 types of psychotherapy. What are they, where did they come from, and what makes them important? We dive deep (too deep, probably) into a $900 textbook in an attempt to make sense of the spectacularly confusing topic of theoretical orientations. This is an integrative episode – we integrate a lot of information with even more information.