Improving the Effectiveness of the Helping Professions

An Evidence-Based Approach to Practice

Morley D. Glicken

• Publisher: SAGE Publications, Inc
• Year: 2004
• Print ISBN: 9780761930259
• eBook ISBN: 9781452263052
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Psychotherapy Counselling
• Index: Psychology

The current practice of counseling, psychotherapy, and most helping professions often relies on clinical wisdom with little evidence of what actually works. Clinical wisdom is often a justification for beliefs and values that bond people together as professionals but often fails to serve clients since many of those beliefs and values may be comforting, but they may also be inherently incorrect.

Improving the Effectiveness of the Helping Professions: An Evidence-Based Approach to Practice covers the use of research and critical thinking to assist helping professionals make the most effective choices in treating clients with social and emotional problems. The use of evidence-based practice (EBP) comes at a time when managed care and concerns over health care costs coincide with growing concerns that psychotherapy, case management, and counseling may not be sufficiently effective ways of helping people in social and emotional difficulty.

Improving the Effectiveness of the Helping Professions provides an easy-to-read, inclusive approach covering EBP with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and terrorism, bereavement, substance abuse, mental illness, and problems experienced by older adults, among others. This text critically reviews the literature on self-help groups, religious involvement, and spirituality. It also includes sources to find best evidence, a simple overview of research concepts, a chapter on critical thinking, and numerous relevant case studies showing the application of EBP.

Improving the Effectiveness of the Helping Professions is ideally suited for undergraduate and graduate students in social work, psychology, counseling, criminal justice, psychiatric nursing, and psychiatry. This book should also prove beneficial to all practitioners and specialists in the helping professions.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Contents
• Preface
• Part 1: The Core Beliefs of Evidence-Based Practice
• 1 - An Explanation of Evidence-Based Practice
• 2 - A Simple Guide to Reading and Understanding Practice Research
• 3 - The Importance of Critical Thinking in Evidenced-Based Practice
• 4 - Locating Relevant Clinical Research
• 5 - Using Evidence-Based Practice in Diagnosis
• Part 2: How Evidence-Based Practice Views Diagnosis, Assessment, and Worker-Client Relationships
• 6 - Evidence-Based Practice and Psychosocial Assessments
• 7 - Evidence-Based Practice and the Client-Worker Relationship
• Part 3: Evidence-Based Practice With Special Client Populations
• 8 - Evidence-Based Practice With Cluster B Personality Disorders
• 9 - Evidence-Based Practice With Victims of Violence and Terrorism
• 10 - Evidence-Based Practice with Substance Abusers
• 11 - Evidence-Based Practice With Mental Illness and Severe Mood Disorders
• 12 - Evidence-Based Practice With Terminal Illness and Bereavement
• 13 - Evidence-Based Practice With Anxiety and Depression in Older Adults
• Part 4: Evidence-Based Practice and Alternative Approaches to Helping
• 14 - Evidence-Based Practice and the Significance of Religion and Spirituality
• 15 - Evidence-Based Practice and the Effectiveness of Indigenous Helpers and Self-Help Groups
• Part 5: Evidence-Based Practice and Future Trends, Social Involvement, and Final Words
• 16 - The Future of Psychotherapy
• 17 - Some Final Words
• Index