The Heroic Client: Doing Client-Directed, Outcome-Informed Therapy

Psychotherapy has for too long relegated the client to a minor role in the drama of therapeutic healing. Moreover, in today's system of managed care, the client is marginalized further as the field is increasingly medicalized and supervised by those interested only in the bottom line. The result: clients are depersonalized by diagnostic labels that have predetermined limits to care, leaving them with few options for meaningful individual treatment. And this system often forces therapists of all disciplines to forgo new or alternative treatments, leaving them enslaved to follow practices in which they no longer believe. It's time for a radical change. In The Heroic Client, Barry Duncan and Scott Miller-cofounders of the Institute for the Study of Therapeutic Change-outline the steps to revitalize psychotherapy by harnessing the client's own powers of regeneration and enlisting the client's own perceptions, and thereby making treatment more effective and accountable. This innovative approach advocates for the client's voice in all aspects of therapy and shows how to tailor both relational stances and treatment approaches to each client's personal goals. The authors present a simple, valid, and reliable way of legitimizing therapy to third-party payers using client feedback about the process and outcome of therapy. Based on extensive clinical research and field-tested experience, The Heroic Client will challenge therapists to rethink the process of therapy, recast clients in their rightful roles as heroes and heroines in their own therapy, and help therapists establish an approach beyond the limits of the medical model. Timely, highly readable, and thought-provoking, The Heroic Client will change the way therapists do therapy. [head] The book that will lead psychotherapy out of the Stone Age and into the age of The Heroic Client In this controversial book, psychologists Barry Duncan and Scott Miller, cofounders of the Institute for the Study of Therapeutic Change, challenge the traditional focus on diagnosis, "silver bullet" techniques, and magic pills, exposing them as empirically bankrupt practices that only diminish the role of clients and hasten therapy's extinction. Instead, they advocate for the long-ignored but most crucial factor in therapeutic success-the innate resources of the client. Based on extensive clinical research and case studies, The Heroic Client not only shows how to harness the client's powers of regeneration to make therapy effective, but also how to enlist the client as a partner to make therapy accountable. The Heroic Client inspires therapists to boldly rewrite the drama of therapy, recast clients in their rightful role as heroes and heroines of the therapeutic stage, and legitimize their services to third-party payers without the compromises of the medical model. "The Heroic Client calls forth a therapeutic union between therapist compassion and accountability with client wisdom. This book inspires us to re-remember why we became therapists in the first place." --Stephen Madigan, director of training, Toronto Narrative Therapy Project, and managing editor, www planet-therapy.com "Warning: If you're addicted to long letters of appreciation touting your clinical prowess, this book will be hazardous to your mental health. Duncan and Miller will show you how to harness your clients' expertise and make therapy a more collaborative, outcome-oriented experience. But fasten your seatbelts, you're in for a humbling ride!" --Michele Weiner-Davis, author, Divorce Busting

BARRY L. DUNCAN is associate professor, School of Social and Systemic Studies, Nova Southeastern University, and the cofounder and codirector of the Institute for the Study of Therapeutic Change. SCOTT D. MILLER is cofounder and codirector of the Institute for the Study of Therapeutic Change, in Chicago, Illinois. Duncan and Miller, with Mark Hubble, are the coauthors of the bestselling Handbook of Solution-Focused Brief Therapy.