How to improve anxiety no matter where you are
The news in Australia has reported that almost a quarter of the country is experiencing Anxiety. This is a great write up by Cate Swannell, read here.
But how do we improve anxiety? First off, attend a Psychologist. The results of therapy are staggering in how effective they are in improving anxiety. In many cases just as effective as the COVID19 vaccine. But how to we improve the chances even more? We measure the results every session. By doing this we can see as soon as the anxiety is re-emerging and adapt treatment before it ever gets worse. Any therapist can do this for their clients but it is harder in some countries than others. Here I introduce the story of Dan. A committed Psychologist in Israel who I provide coaching/training on how to create more effective therapy.
Where Dan lives almost no professionals use outcome measures to improve treatment. Dan has gone to great lengths to introduce outcome measures into his practice. He has done an extensive review and found the outcome measure that works for him, translated the measure into his own language, then created the measure into a Google document that is connected to an Excel file he built that will visually demonstrate client progress with a graph. All this work, simply in the pursuit of improving client care. It’s a wonderful reminder that innovation begins with us as individuals. Find your vision, identify the barriers and develop solutions to overcome them. Well done Dan!
“Today I began to measure the results of my treatment. To some of you, this sounds like a banal comment, almost taken for granted. For those who are familiar with the field of mental health in Israel, this is an unusual and unusual statement. The number of therapists who measure their performance, especially outside of a research setting, is aspiring to zero.
So today I started measuring the outcomes of my treatment --
Because patients deserve to know if the treatments I offer are working.
Because if after a few sessions we see in the measurement that things are not progressing, we can stop and see if we missed something important.
Because if the treatment does work, patients deserve to see it with their eyes and take pride in their work.
Because if I recognize that, consistently over a period of time, I am unable to help patients in a certain area of their lives, perhaps I should do some thinking about how I am improving in this regard.
Because a treatment that is being measured must include a goal that is being measured. And therapy with a purpose is a more successful treatment.
Because if I measure the progress of therapy, patients suddenly realize that it is their right to receive treatment that works, and if they feel that something is not working, we can talk about it.
Today I started measuring the results of my treatments - and it was harder than I thought. This required searching for a questionnaire that would fit the therapeutic approach, a lot of technological preoccupation with the questionnaires, and thinking about how to mediate the measurement for each patient according to his needs. Without a vow in a few months I will finally know how much I help people, and where I have more room for improvement.”
