ELEMENTS OF THERAPEUTIC CHANGE

Course overview

Course Description: This course is based upon material published in the National Academies Press and is available as an open access article. This chapter addresses the elements¿therapeutic activities, techniques, or strategies¿that make up psychosocial interventions. Most if not all evidence-based, manualized psychosocial interventions are packages of multiple elements (see Figure 3-1). As noted in Chapter 1, nonspecific elements (sometimes referred to as ¿common factors¿) represent the basic ingredients common to most if not all psychosocial interventions, whereas specific elements are tied to a particular theoretical model of change. Development of a common terminology to describe the elements could facilitate research efforts to understand their optimal dosing and sequencing, what aspects of psychosocial interventions work best for whom (i.e., personalized medicine), and how psychosocial interventions effect change (i.e., mechanism of action). This research could iteratively inform training in and the implementation of evidence-based psychosocial interventions. This course on therapeutic change is designed for social workers, professional counselors, psychologists, nurses, and substance abuse counselors, who do clinical work. This course is appropriate for beginning, intermediate and advanced level practitioners who wish to develop their understanding of psychosocial interventions. The course material includes a brief literature review. It may also be useful for licensed clinicians who require clinical continuing education courses for license renewal.