Clinical Decision Making in Mental Health Practice

A therapist's most profound responsibility is choosing the right treatment for his or her client. Yet despite extensive training, many mental health professionals have difficulty determining which interventions are best for a particular client at a particular time, and which ones are inert or might even be harmful. And even the most self-aware clinicians are susceptible to biases that can influence their decisions and can have a dramatic effect on treatment outcome. In this book, the first of its kind, contributors apply the theory and research of decision analytics to mental health, with a focus on improving clinical decision making. Decision analytics is a rapidly expanding field that provides crucial insight into how we process information. In the mental health context, decision analytics considers psychotherapy theories as exercises in pattern recognition, and therapy itself as a unique combination of expertise and intuition on the part of the therapist, requiring snap judgments as well as long-term delib

Jeffrey J. Magnavita , PhD, ABPP, is a nationally recognized psychologist, psychotherapist, and clinical theorist in clinical practice for three decades. He is the author and editor of eight professional books on psychotherapy, personality theory, and the treatment of personality disorders, as well as numerous chapters and articles.Dr. Magnavita has been recognized for his work, including APA's Award for Distinguished Professional Contribution to Independent or Institutional Practice in the Private Sector. He has been featured in two APA videotapes demonstrating his unifiying approach to psychotherapy. He served as the president of APA Division 29 (Psychotherapy) in 2010 and is the producer of the video series Psychotherapists Face-to-Face . His work focuses on the unification of clinical science and he is the founder of the Unified Psychotherapy Project and the coeditor of the Journal of Unified Psychotherapy and Clinical Science . Dr. Magnavita is trained in a number of modalities and approaches to clinical treatment, and his work seeks to combine the best of all approaches to maximize treatment outcome. His recent interests include decision making and the use of technology in mental health practice. He served as a member and then vice-chair of the APA Steering Committee tasked with the development of Clinical Practice Guidelines and is a lecturer in the Department of Psychiatry at Yale University, USA. His most recent volume, with Jack C. Anchin, is Unifying Psychotherapy: Principles, Methods, and Evidence from Clinical Science .