James Hillman Tribute

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James Hillman, a charismatic therapist and best-selling author whose theories about the psyche helped revive interest in the ideas of Carl Jung, animating the so-called men’s movement in the 1990s and stirring the pop-cultural air, died on Thursday 27 October 2011, at his home in Thompson, Conn. He was 85.

James Hillman was one of the most inspirational contemporary thinkers in psychotherapy field. His thought-provoking and soulful ideas will be greatly missed.

Read New York Times tribute: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/28/health/james-hillman-therapist-in-mens-movement-dies-at-85.html

Watch DVD trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFng0WCJ8X8&feature=related

Buy James Hillman's DVDs: http://www.psychotherapydvds.com/James-Hillman-Set

Our video tribute to this extraordinary man:

Where goes Motivational Interviewing After 'Payment By Results"?

I've had a fascinating three days working with some of the pilot Drug & Alcohol Services for Payment By Results (PbR). This is the government initiative designed to shift UK drugs services towards tying funding to an abstinence/recovery model accompanied by evidencing documentation - or in the words of the organisational mantra I came across "No TOPs, no clients, no job!". TOPs (Treatment Outcome Profiles) is the evidencing paperwork. Leaving aside the rights and wrongs of this policy switch within the drugs field, I'm particularly interested in it's implications for Motivational Interviewing training (www.skillsdevelopment.co.uk/seminars.php?courseid=5 )

Most managers I talked to were worried that Motivational Interviewing (MI) would be swept aside by the new recovery model. It would be seen as irrelevant in the face of increased compulsion to abstain. I disagreed. PbR is interested in abstinence outcomes and on this basis MI is one of the few games in town.Few other approaches match it's researched outcomes. Plus in the current financial climate it's important to recognise that "a sprinkling" of MI is often sufficient to effect significant changes in outcome with moderate effect sizes. The issue becomes instead whether there is a sufficient MI lobby in the UK to argue it's undoubted virtues and it's invaluable contribution to outcome or whether MI is seen as an expensive extra ignored in a race to the bottom in terms of costs.

Foetal (Fetal) Alcohol Syndrome Interview

Why Client Choice Determines Psychotherapy Outcomes

Placebos have long been seen as an irritating confounding factor in medical research that needs to be controlled. It's therapeutic sister "Non-specific effects" in the psychotherapy field has also been relegated to a factor to be controlled in recent years. And yet, there is considerable research highlighting the substantial role such factors play over and above specific therapeutic effects. Recent research by Professor Michael Hyland at Plymouth University suggests a mechanism behind non-specific effects which has big practical implications for therapists. Put briefly he has discovered that one of the key mechanisms within placebo is the degree to which the proposed "therapy" is explained or perceived in ways which are consistent with client values and goals. This is independent of whether the client actually believes the "therapy" will work. This has big implications. Firstly it explains the discrepancy that often occurs between RCT therapy results and "on-the-ground" therapeutic effectiveness. Secondly, it suggests that client choice of the therapy they use will have a big impact on outcome. I am much more likely to choose a therapy (as a client) that is presented or perceived as being more consistent with my values. It equally suggests that therapists' statements such as " the client isn't very psychologically minded" or " Mandated clients don't change" or "Clients need to be socialised into the therapeutic model" MAY in fact have a more than a grain of truth in them, even if the phrasing isn't quite right!