Our weekly case conferences will begin in January and February. You are welcome to start them this semester even if you did not attend in the fall. Information about each course is on our website under Continuing Education.

Our Post Graduate course resumes on January 25 with special topics concentrating on child, family and couple therapy and brief therapy. Those who have taken the first semester either this fall or previous years are welcome to sign up!

This course is an intensive 2-semester, 18-week course on the Control Mastery Theory (CMT) of psychotherapy and psychopathology. The 2nd semester will consist of 11 weeks starting January 25, 2012.
See the website for topics and registration!

March 3, 2012 we will present our Introduction to Control Mastery Theory class - please let your colleagues know!
This class leads into the week-long 25th Annual International Conference on Control Mastery Theory, March 5 - 9, 2012.
We have already had people registering for the week and we are looking forward to some of our long time members from the East Coast as well as more friends from Norway attending.

Looking at Psychotherapy Outcome: Patient Therapist Interaction and New Research on Process and Outcome

Louis Breger, PhD, Suzanne Gassner, PhD and George Silberschatz, PhD

Saturday, June 2, 2012. Full day conference.
JCC, 2300 California St., SF

This workshop illuminates the effectiveness of psychotherapy through two presentations looking at the outcome of psychotherapy. Louis Breger presents patient accounts of their psychotherapy from his new book, Psychotherapy: Lives Intersecting (Transaction, 2012) in which thirty+ former patients report their experience, in their own words, in many cases a number of years after its conclusion. After a fifty-year career, Breger surveyed these patients to see if their progress, begun in therapy, had continued, expanded, or regressed, highlighting what they remembered as being most helpful, therapeutic, or curative in their treatment. The book, which primarily deals with the connections between the therapist and patient, is a unique long-term follow-up which demonstrates the effectiveness of contemporary analytic psychotherapy.

George Silberschatz presents new research on psychotherapy outcome and the processes of psychotherapy that has grown out of the long history of studies on the psychotherapy process carried out by him and others from the San Francisco Psychotherapy Research Group. Psychotherapy outcome research studies have typically compared the effectiveness of one kind of therapy (e.g., psychodynamic therapy) against another (e.g., cognitive behavior therapy). Although thousands of such studies have been done, the cumulative results of such research has done little to shed light on how therapy works or on how a therapist can best help a particular patient seeking treatment. Silberschatz will present data from his recent process-outcome research, which systematically evaluated how the therapeutic process is linked to treatment outcome. This study assessed the extent to which therapist interventions were responsive to the patient's problems, needs, and goals and then evaluated whether these responsiveness ratings were predictive of treatment outcome.

Suzanne Gassner, who has written a series of clinical and formal research papers on control-mastery theory, will discuss Breger and Silbserschatz's papers. Throughout the day there will be ample time for audience participation. At the end of the afternoon program, a panel of Breger, Silberschatz and Gassner will further discuss the day's papers with the audience and the pros and cons of these two investigatory approaches to the study of psychotherapy outcome.

Attachment Theory and Control Mastery Theory
with David Wallin and Steven Foreman
October 27, 2012

PSYCHOLOGISTS: SFPRG is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. SFPRG maintains responsibility for these programs and their contents.

L.C.S.W.s/M.F.C.C.s: SFPRG is a provider approved by the Board of Behavioral Sciences, Provider Number PCE104, for CE credit on an hour-for-hour basis.