The Heroic Agencies Vision
We envision a future where clients' heroic stories overshadow descriptions of illness and client-directed partnerships revolutionize "mental health" as we know it.
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The Heart and Soul Conference
June 10-12, 2004
Click here to view photos from the conference
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WORKSHOP TOPICS CONTINUED
THE HEROIC CLIENT
A REVOLUTIONARY WAY TO IMPROVE EFFECTIVENESS
Despite the fortunes we spend on weekend workshops selling the latest fashion, the competition among the more than 250 therapeutic schools amounts to little more than the competition among aspirin, Advil, and Tylenol. All of them relieve pain and work better than no treatment at all. None stands head and shoulders above the rest. They work equally well because they share one very important, but classically ignored ingredient—the client and his or her own regenerative healing powers. This presentation shows how to harness the client's powers of regeneration to solve life’s most challenging problems. Recent research about outcome feedback has demonstrated that using client-based outcome feedback increases effectiveness by an incredible 65%. Therapists do not need to know ahead of time what approach to use for a given diagnosis as much as whether the current relationship is providing benefit, and, if not, what to do to adjust early enough to maximize the chances of success. In this workshop reliable, valid, and feasible methods for assessing therapy process and outcomes will be presented. Participants will also learn how to monitor the session-by session impact of their services with clients and use that information to both prove and enhance efficacy.
THE SCIENCE AND ETHICS OF MEDICATING CHILDREN
Prescriptions for psychiatric drugs to children and adolescents have skyrocketed in the past ten years. This presentation demonstrates that the superior effectiveness of stimulants and antidepressants is largely a presumption, based on an empirical house of cards, driven by an industry that has no conscience about the implications of its ever-growing, and disturbingly younger, list of consumers. Recognizing that most mental health professionals do not have the time, and sometimes feel ill equipped, to explore the controversy regarding pharmacological treatment of children, this workshop discusses the four fatal flaws of drug studies to enable a critical examination of research addressing the drugging of children. The presenters argue that an ethical path requires the challenge of the automatic medical response to medicate children, with an accompanying demand for untainted science and balanced information to inform critical decisions by child caretakers.
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