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 deliberation.

Contributors examine common decision-making biases, such as confirmation bias and the "sunk-cost" fallacy, which can lead to poor outcomes if ignored or left unchecked. Practical recommendations are provided for improving clinical decisions using evidence-based findings, client feedback, ethics, and more.

Contributors

Foreword
Gerald P. Koocher

Preface

1. Overview and Challenges of Clinical Decision Making in Mental Health Practice
   Jeffrey J. Magnavita
2. Clinical Expertise and Decision Making: An Overview of Bias in Clinical Practice
   Jeffrey J. Magnavita and Scott O. Lilienfeld
3. A Dual Process Perspective on the Value of Theory in Psychotherapeutic Decision Making
   Jack C. Anchin and Jefferson A. Singer
4. Clinical Practice Guideline Development and Decision Making
   Lynn F. Bufka and Erin F. Swedish
5. Developing Clinical Practice Guidelines to Enhance Clinical Decision Making
   Steven D. Hollon
6. Using Technology to Enhance Decision Making
   Franz Caspar, Thomas Berger, and Lukas Frei
7. Clinical Decision Making When the Stakes Are High
   Jeffrey J. Magnavita
8. Use of Empirically Grounded Relational Principles to Enhance Clinical Decision Making
   Ken L. Critchfield and Julia E. Mackaronis
9. Integrating Ongoing Measurement Into the Clinical Decision-Making Process With Measurement Feedback Systems
   Thomas L. Sexton and Adam R. Fisher
10. Clinical Decision Making and Risk Management
    Steven A. Sobelman and Jeffrey N. Younggren
11. Teaching Clinical Decision Making
    Gregg Henriques

Index

About the Editor

Jeffrey J. Magnavita, PhD, ABPP, is a nationally recognized psychologist, psychotherapist, and clinical theorist who has been in clinical practice for 3 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 is featured in two APA videos demonstrating his unifying approach to psychotherapy. He also served as the president of APA Division 29 (Society for the Advancement of Psychotherapy) in 2010 and is the producer of the video series Psychotherapists Face-to-Face.

Dr. Magnavita's work focuses on the unification of clinical science and he is the founder of the Unified Psychotherapy Projectopens in new window and the coeditor of the Journal of Unified Psychotherapy and Clinical Science.

He 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 most recent research interest is decision making and the use of technology in mental health practice.

Dr. Magnavita 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.

His most recent volume, with Jack C. Anchin, is Unifying Psychotherapy: Principles, Methods, and Evidence from Clinical Science.