Luoma, J. B., Hayes, S. C., Twohig, M. P., Roget, N., Fisher, G., Padilla, M., Bissett, R., & Kohlenberg, B. (2007). Augmenting continuing education with psychologically focused group consultation: Effects on adoption of group drug counseling. Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, Practice, Training, 44(4), 463-469.
This study examines whether adding psychologically focused group consultation to a standard 1-day continuing education workshop on Group Drug Counseling (GDC), a group therapy with evidence of effectiveness in the treatment of substance abuse problems, improves GDC adoption. Counselors who had taken a 1-day workshop were randomly assigned to an 8-week course of group consultation that met for 1.5 hr per session (n 16) or to no additional contact (n 14). The group consultation used Relapse Prevention and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy principles to help participants overcome psychological barriers to the adoption of GDC. Results showed that the 1-day workshop resulted in attempts by trainees to implement the new therapy, but that the consultation condition maintained significantly higher levels of adoption and 2- and 4-month followups. Additionally, those in the group consultation condition reported a higher sense of personal accomplishment at the 4-month followup. These findings suggest that empirically supported psychotherapy models can be used to decrease clinicians’ psychological barriers to adoption of evidence-based psychotherapy methods.