How do most therapists answer this question?

In a video clip from the FIT Basics Course, Scott D. Miller, founder of the International Center for Clinical Excellence is recalling the many times he has asked for a show of hands in response to the Question, “Does therapy work?”

The surprising fact is that about half of you are not sure. You're not sure? maybe, I don’t Know?

That certainly wouldn't happen in another profession. Other professionals say yeah! Hell ya, we're doing a fantastic job! But in our field, it is a little bit more difficult to, you know put a pin on it. There are qualifiers like; what does that mean? What is effective therapy? Sure, we all know we've got cases where we had great success… but also cases that maybe keep us up at night

And it’s for those reasons that the Outcome and Session Rating Scales (ORS & SRS) were created more than 20 years ago.

Of these two brief measures, the Outcome Rating Scale measuring well-being in domains that are known to be influenced by treatment. Basically, if you are you know you're having some problems but it's not really affecting you too much, personally, interpersonally, or in your social /work life then it's not likely that you're going to seek help

It’s also true that if therapy is going to be helpful, it's going to show up in one or more of these areas. And that is what this first lesson is about, exploring how therapy works and how do we know if it's working or not working. That's the other reason people gravitate towards the use of brief measures like the outcome and session rating scale because they do help to give you a signal that you might not have picked up on, that lets you know if the client is not progressing as expected.

If what they're doing in the room with you isn’t showing up in one or more of these areas of the life, then they're not likely to continue…Nor should they. Agree?