Improving the Effectiveness of the Helping Professions

Book excerpt: The current practice of counselling, psychotherapy, and most helping professions often relies on clinical wisdom with little evidence of what actually works. Clinical wisdom is often a justification for beliefs and values that bond people together as professionals but often fails to serve clients since many of those beliefs and values may be comforting, but they may also be inherently incorrect. Improving the Effectiveness of the Helping Professions: An Evidence-Based Approach to Practice covers the use of research and critical thinking to assist helping professionals make the most effective choices in treating clients with social and emotional problems. The use of evidence-based practice (EBP) comes at a time when managed care and concerns over health care costs coincide with growing concerns that psychotherapy, case management, and counseling may not be sufficiently effective ways of helping people in social and emotional difficulty.