The data are in; therapy outcomes are good but not getting better, individual clinicians are not improving over the course of their career, around a third of clients will drop out after less than 3 sessions, and there is little evidence consistent with the premise that supervision as we currently do it makes any difference to outcomes.

Despite this, mental health professionals invest millions of dollars every year learning the latest innovative methods for improving their practice. They do this because they care deeply for their clients,
and they believe that if they just learned one new technique, then maybe they would magically have the skills to help that one client who never seems to get better. New techniques often promise miraculous effect sizes, yet despite all this promise and all this investment in learning, neither the individual or the profession make any gains. A more modest approach to improvement is offered by deliberate practice.

Consistent research shows small but reliable improvements in personal effectiveness per year (Cohen’s D = 0.035). These improvements add up to large gains over the course of a decade, and so far are the only techniques reliably shown to be associated with improved outcomes for clients.

This workshop will provide a step by step guide to deliberate practice, covering both research and theory, but importantly teaching participants how to apply these concepts to their own practice. As an innovative twist, early career psychologists will be paired up with later career psychologists to give each other feedback on the techniques and processes being developed