The Heart & Soul of Change: What Works in Therapy

"If you are a mental health provider in an agency or private practice you must read this book. As a Marriage and Family Therapy student this book was assigned for class. My time is short and classes are long. This book, however, I couldn't put down. Every chaper is helpful and makes a lasting impression on how I see clients and how I do therapy. Buy the book and read it. It will forever change your practice and how you see clients as agents of change, joining as critical, and theories as less important."
~ Written on 2007-12-21

"It is wonderful that the authors are taking on a topic of real importance in the psychotherapy field. What is much less impressive is their approach, which basically harkens back to 30 years ago in the field of therapy research. The authors search for common factors in therapy (which is fine), but at the expense of recognizing the enormous value that evidence-based therapy models play. There is a reason that evidence-based models have taken the field by storm-- that is because they consistently outperform "treatment as usual" which is what most clinicians practice (i.e., making it up on the spot, depending on their whims and biases). The authors take a highly one-sided approach-- not valuing the enormous strides that have been made in the field by evidence-based treatments, and the advent of the empirical testing of them. "
~ Written on 2007-07-22

"Based on the strong literature review, professionals in the human services field may well see an improvement in their clinical outcomes if they follow the suggestions in this book."
~ Written on 2001-07-19

"I found this text to be of great help. The contributing chapters and the topics covered are fantastic. The authors take therapy constructs that have always been detailed in writing styles far too thick and complex and now describes them in descriptions much easier to understand, all the better for the transfer from theory to practice. While certainly pointed at the field of therapy, this book speaks to many of the "helping" disciplines---more can be "therapeutic" by aligning with these "common factors." The authors give great review to the ingredients to effective interventions and behavior change. When I finished this book, I was left with the impression that although everyone may not be in the "therapy business" this book shows how many who "help" can now be far more involved in the positive behavior change business.

I read this with relish. A genuine "Thanks" to all those who contributed to this book. I can't say enough about it."
~ Written on 2001-01-05

"This book challenged what I was taught to do when doing therapy. The book inspired me--made me think about new ways to view "stuck" cases. The case examples were powerful and the writing was excellent. A bit of interspersed humor made the reading interesting. I highly reccommend this book to anyone in the field of therapy. In fact, I suggest reading this book before going in to the field so that one can avoid becoming pigeon-holed into any certain formal, traditional model of therapy."
~ Written on 2000-05-25