The Master Therapist’s Toolkit

You’ll learn proven, practical approaches and interventions from leading clinical innovators. The Master Therapist’s Toolkit is packed full of expert techniques developed by leading therapists through years of experience and research. This kit is designed to increase your counseling effectiveness, enhance your professional development and prepare you with tested treatment approaches to improve your client outcomes. We have gathered the tools and resources for some of the most regularly encountered conditions—the ones that often prove the most challenging to treat—and combined them into one convenient package for you. Featuring some of the most respected and trusted experts in the world, this one-of-a-kind therapeutic compilation offers profound insights and practical techniques that will transform your practice. Get expert guidance on:

The complete access to our popular series: The 6 Most Challenging Issues in Therapy

1) Treating Clients with Severe Attachment Disorders

Janina Fisher, Ph.D.

Develop better ways of working with clients trapped in their feelings of shame and worthlessness by learning to:

• Move beyond the limitations of acceptance and unconditional positive regard
• Recognize internal attachment disorder
• Help clients reconnect with their disowned self
• Integrate parts work into your approach
• Use somatic methods with traumatized clients

Janina Fisher, Ph.D., is assistant director of the Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Institute, an instructor at the Trauma Center in Boston, and a former instructor at Harvard Medical School. She lectures and writes about integrating neuroscience research and body-centered approaches into traditional psychotherapy.

2) Treating the Borderline Client

Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.

Discover ways to avoid unnecessary struggles through openhearted acceptance of yourself and the client by:

• Understanding the role of exiled “parts” in your client’s reactive responses
• Deepening awareness of your own parts
• Learning how to access the compassionate inner “self”
• Exploring the fundamentals of parts work
• Managing common traps like client anger and over-dependency

Richard Schwartz, Ph.D., is director of the Center for Self Leadership and the originator of the Internal Family Systems model. His books include Internal Family Systems Therapy and, most recently, You Are the One You’ve Been Waiting For.

3) Treating the Stuck and Self-Destructive Client

William Doherty, Ph.D.

Learn how to move beyond subtly blaming the client, giving speeches, or becoming defensive when therapy stalls by:

• Recognizing when you sound like a disappointed parent
• Making the impasse explicit without blaming the client
• Acknowledging your own role when treatment bogs down
• Learning to repair ruptures in the therapeutic alliance
• Developing a community of practice with tough cases

William Doherty, Ph.D., is a professor and director of the Citizen Professional Center at the University of Minnesota. He’s the author or coauthor of 12 books on families and family therapy, including Take Back Your Marriage, Take Back Your Kids, and Family Therapy, with Susan McDaniel.

4) Treating the Narcissistic Client

Wendy Behary, L.C.S.W.

Learn how to form genuine relationships with self-absorbed, arrogant clients lacking in empathy by:

• Gaining and retaining therapeutic leverage
• Mastering the art of empathic confrontation
• Assessing your own vulnerabilities and triggers
• Putting clients in touch with their inner lonely child
• Using homework assignments to generalize therapeutic learnings and strengthen retention

Wendy Behary, L.C.S.W., the founder and director of The Cognitive Therapy Center of New Jersey and of The New Jersey Institute for Schema Therapy, is the author of Disarming the Narcissist: Surviving and Thriving with the Self-Absorbed.

5) Treating the Highly Resistant Client

Clifton Mitchell, Ph.D.

Get practical guidance on a range of clinical methods that will help you overcome stagnation and create therapeutic movement with your most hard-to-treat cases by learning

• The danger of relieving the client’s pain too soon
• How to set mutually agreed upon goals
• How to focus clients on compelling reasons to change
• When to slow the pace
• The “Columbo” approach to overcoming stalemates

Clifton Mitchell, Ph.D., is a professor at East Tennessee State University, where he received the Teacher of the Year award in 2002. He’s the author of Effective Techniques for Dealing with Highly Resistant Clients.

6) Customizing Therapy with the Resistant Client

John Norcross, Ph.D.

Explore how to match treatment approaches with client characteristics to avoid stalled sessions by understanding:

• Assessment for six key client characteristics
• Reactance: defiance vs. compliance
• Coping style: internalizers vs. externalizers
• Stage of change: precontemplation, contemplation, and action
• Other characteristics: religion/spirituality, culture, and preferences

John Norcross, Ph.D., A.B.P.P., is a professor of psychology and distinguished university fellow at the University of Scranton, a clinical psychologist, and editor of the Journal of Clinical Psychology: In Session. He’s the author, coauthor, and editor of many books and publications, including Psychotherapy Relationships That Work.