ACT for OCD: How to Be an Effective Therapist
Key Points
- It can be hard to remember all the relevant content for each of your clients.
- To remember specific information, create a cumulative list to cue your memory.
- While this takes extra time, lists help you provide quality treatment when you see lots of clients.
Materials Downloads
Transcript
As clinicians, we are all busy.
In a perfect world, we would remember every detail of our clients, all the intricacies of their obsessions, compulsions, and avoidance behaviors as well as all the ACT processes that we’ve covered with them, to what extent, how they responded to each of those, what exercises and metaphors were used in sessions, which one they liked, which one they hated, anything that they shared that was different about those metaphors, if they threw in their own little thoughts or names. In that perfect world, we wouldn’t have to say things like, “So have we talked about blah, blah, blah?” But in reality, remembering this is very difficult for every client. And some of you may have better memories than others.
For myself, I rely on systems that I have in place in order to be an effective clinician in this way. I can remember a lot of the details of my clients but not all of them. Especially because most of my practice is working with people who have OCD and anxiety and related concerns. So, a lot of symptoms overlap, and I never want to confuse those things for other clients, and I want to provide the best treatment possible. So, I’m going to talk with you about the systems that I have set up in hopes that those may be helpful for you to manage these when you are a busy clinician and seeing clients full time.
