Thriving with Autism through Neurofeedback Therapy Are you looking for a tool that will get you faster and further results? In the beginning, an autism diagnosis can feel devastating. Some moments are brilliant, while others are a confusing tangle of meltdowns that may even include violence. In those moments, void of hope, you would do almost anything to make it stop. Sometimes it simply comes down to how you use-and diffuse-a situation. Louloua Smadi understands this desperation well. Her brother, Milo, was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) at two and a half years of age. Today, he is training to become a professional pastry chef. It's the years in between that she shares in her book, From Client to Clinician: The Transformative Power of Neurofeedback Therapy for Families Living with Autism and Other Special Needs. Everything began to change when the family met Dr. Lynette Louise. Her integrative approach using neurofeedback and play was the catalyst that helped Milo to thrive and grow. Louloua even used the therapy herself to overcome poor concentration and focus. Greatly impressed with her own improvements, she was inspired to become a practitioner herself. Her path from client to clinician illustrates the different approaches to healing using neurofeedback and highlights the gap between the research and clinical worlds. Whether you are a parent, caregiver, therapist, or potential client, this book will help you gain a clear understanding of neurofeedback therapy and how this personal and holistic therapy can help you or your loved ones overcome a challenging diagnosis.

What is it that makes some therapists so much more effective than others, even when they are delivering the same evidence-based treatment? This instructive book identifies specific interpersonal skills and attitudes--often overlooked in clinical training--that facilitate better client outcomes across a broad range of treatment methods and contexts. Reviewing 70 years of psychotherapy research, the preeminent authors show that empathy, acceptance, warmth, focus, and other characteristics of effective therapists are both measurable and teachable. Richly illustrated with annotated sample dialogues, the book gives practitioners and students a blueprint for learning, practicing, and self-monitoring these crucial clinical skills.

When Mary Wazeter turned 18, she had an exciting and successful life ahead of her. As a world-class runner and on a full athletic scholarship at Georgetown University, the future held Olympic dreams combined with academic achievement. Her world turned upside down when anorexia and clinical depression gripped her and turned a bright mind towards the darkness of mental illness. It is a story of how multiple suicide attempts, one leaving Mary paralyzed led to a journey of faith, fortitude, and freedom. Building on her biography, Dark Marathon, published in 1989, Mary's fight shows that perseverance combined with having a God-given vision can carry us over countless obstacles and bring to fruition a life built around helping others who struggle. Mary became a licensed professional counselor in 2019 and is now bringing hope to the 1 in 5 Americans suffering with a mental health issue.

Bridge the gulf between theoretical science and clinical application! This new edition of Elements of the Helping Process is a practical guide filled with novel ideas and innovative methods for tailoring the helping process to meet clients'special needs. Every chapter of the original edition has been updated, and new chapters in this edition discuss resiliency and its clinical enhancement; trauma and its impact on both clients and clinicians; and practice evaluation processes. The down-to-earth advice in this book draws upon both theoretical foundations and practical techniques and integrates individual and family approaches to assessment and intervention. With common sense and minimal professional jargon, this book will show you how to customize social work to the needs of the client, highlighting components such as writing, developing family trees, and creating logs and profiles. Elements of the Helping Process, Second Edition, provides practical guidelines, systematic directions, and suggestions for actively responding to clients and their needs. Here you'll find detailed descriptions of steps to follow for each phase of the helping process. Use this invaluable synthesis of theories, strategies, and techniques to create a climate of trust and to match assessment and intervention with the unique goals of your clients. This valuable book contains thoughtful, insightful discussions of: a paradigm that emphasizes the health and strengths of the client attachment behavior and empathy creating a safehouse seven levels of helping relationships what to expect from clients at first contact (with a helpful checklist to guide you in assessing first contacts) the importance and process of assessment clients, goals, and contracting guidelines for discovering and capturing a client's life story the benefits of logging and guidelines for using a log the power of metaphor the process of termination; how to know when a client is ready and much, much more! In contrast to guides based strictly on orthodox theory, this user-friendly book bridges the gap between scientific theories and the day-to-day decisions facing clinicians, making it easy for professionals to apply these strategies to individual practices.

Patient-centered, high-quality health care relies on the well-being, health, and safety of health care clinicians. However, alarmingly high rates of clinician burnout in the United States are detrimental to the quality of care being provided, harmful to individuals in the workforce, and costly. It is important to take a systemic approach to address burnout that focuses on the structure, organization, and culture of health care. Taking Action Against Clinician Burnout: A Systems Approach to Professional Well-Being builds upon two groundbreaking reports from the past twenty years, To Err Is Human: Building a Safer Health System and Crossing the Quality Chasm: A New Health System for the 21st Century, which both called attention to the issues around patient safety and quality of care. This report explores the extent, consequences, and contributing factors of clinician burnout and provides a framework for a systems approach to clinician burnout and professional well-being, a research agenda to advance clinician well-being, and recommendations for the field.

Everything mental health clinicians need to know about the medical conditions of their patients. People seeking therapy for mental health issues often also have medical problems such as diabetes, AIDS, asthma, or heart conditions. As a therapist, should you ignore the medical conditions that your clients may have, and simply stick to what you’re trained in, healing the mind and not focusing on medical or bodily issues? Or, should you inquire about any medical issues during intake and give them full attention? As a non-medically trained practitioner, how much should you really be expected to know about these issues? These answers and more can be found in this book. Geared specifically to nonmedically trained mental health professionals, it gives practitioners a better understanding of exactly how physical health issues play out in the context of mental health issues, equipping clinicians with the information necessary to more effectively create and manage a comprehensive psychotherapeutic treatment regimen.

Values in Therapy is a powerful and practical guide for any therapist—chock-full of insight and tools to conceptualize, integrate, and effectively apply values work in-session. With an emphasis on cultivating meaning and vitality in client lives, the values component of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) is what draws many clinicians to the treatment model. Yet, until now, there have been no practical guides available on values-based practice written from an ACT perspective. And while values work may appear deceptively simple, it’s often difficult to effectively carry out in practice. That’s where this comprehensive guide comes in. Values in Therapy emphasizes the facilitation of specific qualities inherent in effective values conversations, such as vitality, choice, present-focused awareness, and willing vulnerability. This book will help you move away from basic techniques and exercises and toward the nuance and skills you need to do effective values work. You’ll also learn how to use these tools, with detailed scripts for in-session exercises, handouts for clients, homework ideas, assessment and tracking tools, case examples, practical vignettes, and more. Whether you’re an ACT clinician, or simply looking to incorporate values-based work into your treatment, this essential guide provides everything you need to help clients connect with what really matters to them, so they can live full and meaningful lives.

Transgender and gender nonconforming (TNGC) clients have complex mental health concerns, and are more likely than ever to seek out treatment. This comprehensive resource outlines the latest research and recommendations to provide you with the requisite knowledge, skills, and awareness to treat TNGC clients with competent and affirming care. As you know, TNGC clients have different needs based on who they are in relation to the world. Written by three psychologists who specialize in working with the TGNC population, this important book draws on the perspective that there is no one-size-fits-all approach for working with TNGC clients. It offers interventions tailored to developmental stages and situational factors—for example, cultural intersections such as race, class, and religion. This book provides up-to-date information on language, etiquette, and appropriate communication and conduct in treating TGNC clients, and discusses the history, cultural context, and ethical and legal issues that can arise in working with gender-diverse individuals in a clinical setting. You’ll also find information about informed consent approaches that call for a shift in the role of the mental health provider in the position of assessment and referral for the purposes of gender-affirming medical care (such as hormones, surgery, and other procedures). As changes in recent transgender health care and insurance coverage have provided increased access for a broader range of consumers, it is essential to understand transgender and gender nonconforming clients’ different needs. This book provides practical exercises and skills you can use to help TNGC clients thrive.

This open access book is a unique resource for health professionals who are interested in understanding the philosophical foundations of their daily practice. It provides tools for untangling the motivations and rationality behind the way medicine and healthcare is studied, evaluated and practiced. In particular, it illustrates the impact that thinking about causation, complexity and evidence has on the clinical encounter. The book shows how medicine is grounded in philosophical assumptions that could at least be challenged. By engaging with ideas that have shaped the medical profession, clinicians are empowered to actively take part in setting the premises for their own practice and knowledge development. Written in an engaging and accessible style, with contributions from experienced clinicians, this book presents a new philosophical framework that takes causal complexity, individual variation and medical uniqueness as default expectations for health and illness.

This essential text explores the intersectionality of the self in therapeutic practice, bringing together theoretical foundations and practical implications to provide clear guidance for students and practitioners. Bringing together a collection of insightful and experienced clinicians, this book examines the ways in which intersectionality influences all phases of clinical and supervisory work, from outreach, assessment, and through to termination. Integrating research with clinical practice, chapters not only examine the theoretical, intersectional location of the self for the therapist, client, or supervisee, but they also consider how this social identity effects the therapeutic process and, crucially, work with clients. The book includes first-hand accounts, case studies, and reflections to demonstrate how interactions are influenced by gender, race, and sexuality, offering practical ideas about how to work intentionally and ethically with clients. Engaging, informative, and practical, this book is essential reading for students, supervisors, family, marriage, and couple therapists, and clinical social workers who want to work confidently with a range of clients, as well as clinical professionals interested in the role of intersectionality in their work.