Feedback-Informed Treatment

I listen carefully when new clients share stories of previous attempts at therapy that have gone awry. I’m astonished and saddened by the things I hear. I admire their courage and marvel at people’s willingness to try again when they’ve been sorely disappointed. And, the most sobering part is wondering about those who’ve left my care disappointed and unfulfilled. What are they telling their next therapist?

If we aren’t giving you the therapy you need, please tell us about it, not your next therapist.

At Healthy Relationships Counseling Services, our first priority is to make sure you’re getting the treatment you need. Good therapy leads to better life functioning and healthier, happier relationships, and you should see change fairly quickly.

It’s important that we have a reliable way of communicating with you about your therapy. For this, we use two simple tools:

• The Outcome Rating Scale, or ORS, which tells us how things are going since your previous session, and
• The Session Rating Scale, or SRS, that tells us if you’re getting what you need from your therapist.

Don’t worry. The scales take less than 30 seconds at the beginning and ending of each session.

If you find we aren’t meeting your needs, let us know. We’ll listen to you, and thank you for your candor. And we’ll try something different. And if you’d like to move on, we’ll do our best to find you a therapist who can help you.

Realistically speaking, no therapist can be right for all people. All the same, research shows that even though different therapies work equally well, some therapists are more effective than others. We work hard at being among those highly effective therapists.

That’s why we do Feedback-Informed Treatment. It’s a crucial step in doing our best work and serving you.