People, who could use support confronting their mental health needs, are often challenged in seeking that support. Two significant reasons why folks don’t seek support for mental health issues are:
- They believe they don’t need help;
- They tell themselves that they are who they are, and nothing can change that.
To overcome these two barriers, individuals need to recognize three things:
- They have a psychological, emotional, or behavioral problem negatively impacting their life;
- The problem is not permanent but can be changed;
- What they are doing on their own isn’t working and they need support. It is with this latter point that the psychotherapist enters the individual’s life.
Psychotherapists aren’t mechanics that fix things like broken bones. Instead, they’re experts in change, whose core responsibility is guiding their client on their path to change. To understand what therapists do, we need to consider why individuals seek the support of therapists. Individuals, entering a clinical setting, want to become someone different. They want to become someone whose behavior, psychological state, or emotional state doesn’t prevent them from experiencing what they believe should be a full and satisfying life. The therapist’s role is not to determine what that life should look like. Instead, they’re more like highly-trained mental health guides, whose role is helping folk navigate successfully achieving their goals.
Although therapists are trained in graduate school to separate what they think is right from what is right for their patient, they are still human beings, filled with all the foibles that go with that. It isn’t always easy to keep what you want separate, from what your patient wants. Often, the clinician’s effectiveness can benefit from a more objective viewpoint that can inform the therapist on how well they are identifying their clients’ goals and their clients’ progress with feedback informed therapy. MyOutcomes, with its Scott Miller’s Outcome Rating Scale (ORS) and Session Rating Scale (SRS), is an evidence-based tool that has proven effectiveness in helping the clinician help their clients in achieving their therapeutic goals. Therapists, who are seeking to become more effective, are known to seek objective evidence into how well they and their client are progressing toward their client’s goals. There is no more powerful tool for providing this evidence than MyOutcomes.
When an individual decides to seek a mental health provider, there are two things they should ask. First, is the therapist right for them? Deciding that a therapist isn’t right isn’t so much a rejection of the therapist as much as it is a recognition that they’re a unique individual with specific needs. Second, does the therapist have an evidence-based practice or do they instead try to wing it, flying by the seat of their gut? If the therapist uses evidence to help their client achieve their therapeutic goals, MyOutcomes is the perfect tool.