In the previous post, I advocated the marriage of our clinical intuition and the use of outcome informed data.

Do not let me convince you. Let your experience convince. Put it to the test. Try them on for size.

Here’s how:

I call this the Rate & Predict exercise. There are two parts:

A. Using an Outcome Measure (Outcome Rating Scale, ORS; Clinical Outcome Routine Evaluation, CORE),

1. Rate: After the first session, ask your client to RATE the outcome measure in subsequent sessions;

2. Predict: Before you see your client’s score, PREDICT what they would score. It is important that you write down scores for each of the sub-scales, if any. (for ORS, Individual wellbeing, close relationships, Social, General). This prevents us from falling into the “I knew it all along” hindsight bias effect.

3. Evaluate: Compare and contrast the scores. See what stands out. Talk about the with your client.

B. Using an alliance measure (e.g., Session Rating Scale, SRS),

1. Rate: At the end of the first session, ask your client to RATE how they feel about the level of engagement in the session;

2. Predict: Before you see your client’s score, PREDICT what they would score. It is important that you write down scores for each of the sub-scales (for SRS, level of emotional connection, goals, approach/method, overall).

3. Evaluate: Compare and contrast the scores. See what surprised you. Form your feedback questions from there.

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