Author Description

In this book the authors paint an elaborate portrait of expert or 'master' therapists. The book contains extensive qualitative research conducted over a seven-year period on the same ten master therapists. This intensive research project on master therapists, those considered the 'best of the best' by their colleagues, will appeal to mental health providers, counselor/therapist training programs, and researchers seeking to understand more fully optimal therapist development. Research on experienced, let alone expert, therapists and counselors is extremely rare. There are just a handful of studies utilizing therapists at this high level of professional development. Rarer still in the counseling and psychotherapy research literature is the depth of the focus resulting from the multiple and longitudinal studies reflected in this book. Such a rich description of expert therapists and counselors can help inform mental health practitioners, as well as therapist training programs, of the ways of masters—therapists considered to be operating at the highest level of the profession— and be used as potential guidelines for their own professional development. Mental health providers, counselor/therapist training programs, and researchers.