All About This Forum

I am greatly concerned about the future of our field. Looking around, it is not hard to see that we practicing therapists are in a period of dramatic change. I invite you to join me in discussing directions the field can take which would insure our survival and benefit the clients with whom we work. In particular I would like to exchange ideas about some of the challenges and choices that face us in the next millenium. Though concerned about the future, I believe that constructive action can lead to improvements in our craft as well as therapists' quality of life.

It seems to me that professional discourse in mental health has been dominated by three ideas:

(1) an emphasis on pathology (or what is wrong with people that needs fixing by therapists);

(2) an emphasis on the therapist's role in the change process (or what therapists consider relevant and important in helping people);

and (3) an emphasis on model and techniques (or privileging the therapists language and experience of treatment over clients).

Curiously, in spite of their dominance, the research indicates that these three areas of theory and practice contribute little to psychotherapy outcome. In an era of accountability, this is a formula for disaster. In order to survive and thrive in the next millennium as a separate and distinct group, the non-medical helping professions need offer empirically valid and reliable alternatives to these three popular yet bankrupt areas of practice.

Please join me in sharing your ideas about the choices and challenges facing mental health professionals in the next millenium.

Scott Miller

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