What do the most effective therapists do differently?

The study: A naturalistic study of 69 therapists and 4,580 clients. A subgroup of 17 therapists (1,632 clients) also reported how they spent their professional development time.

What they found: Therapists accounted for about 5% of the variance in client outcomes. Experience, profession, qualifications, age and caseload did not predict who got better results. What did predict outcomes was the time therapists spent specifically trying to improve their skills. The most effective therapists also rated solitary review of their own recordings as more effortful than their peers did.

Why it matters for practice: Years in the chair are not the same as getting better. How you spend your learning time seems to matter more than how much experience you have.

Chow, D. L., Miller, S. D., Seidel, J. A., Kane, R. T., Thornton, J. A., & Andrews, W. P. (2015). The role of deliberate practice in the development of highly effective psychotherapists. Psychotherapy, 52(3), 337–345. https://doi.org/10.1037/pst0000015