As a client, or prospective therapy client, have you ever wondered why there are so many different theories and techniques of counseling and therapy? Have you spent time trying to research which of the acronyms—CBT, DBT, AFT, ACT, EMDR, and so on—will unlock the key for you?

Beginning clinicians in training programs ask themselves similar questions, and I wrote my book to answer them.

Intentional Intervention in Counseling and Therapy answers three questions: What heals in counseling and therapy and how? What actions in clinical decision making ensure optimal outcome for the client? And why are some clinicians more skillful than others, apparently remaining so over time?

New propositions advanced by Intentional Intervention are the dialectic between goals and process, informing both client response and the clinician’s every action and decision, and the construct of the therapist self, to be augmented in specific ways so the clinician can better recognize client signals and “manage the dialectic” accordingly.

Written for beginning counselors and therapists wishing to augment their skill, Intentional Intervention is the only book in applied theory to lay out the clinician's professional developmental path alongside a precise demonstration of assessment, treatment planning, and clinical decision making. Questions in effectiveness and outcome are seen as questions not in theory and technique, but rather in the clinician’s cognitions, constructions, and developmental attainment.

Employing both goals and process to engage the reader, Intentional Intervention advances an academically rigorous argument, with citations across multiple disciplines and referencing authorities in both CBT and psychodynamic models, interleaved with composite case material and session transcripts running through the book to animate the narrative.