Feedback-Informed Treatment

We’ll use Feedback-Informed Treatment (FIT, for short) to customize how we work together so it’s just right for you. Studies show FIT makes counseling much more effective.

How FIT works

At the end of every session, each of you fills out a short form to rate how useful I’ve been: Are you being heard? Are we covering what’s important to you? Is the approach making sense? Your feedback helps us make progress as quickly as possible.

This process takes just a couple of minutes, and it makes a big difference.

Why FIT is useful

Therapy can get off track in several ways. One common problem is setting vague goals, or losing track of the goals. Using FIT means your wishes guide what we do in every session.

Another issue is that therapists usually think things are going better than clients do. (There’s a lot of research about this!) With FIT, you do the rating (not me), so your voice gets heard loud and clear, and you keep me aware of what’s useful for you and what’s not.

A big problem with relationship counseling is when one partner likes the therapist’s approach and one partner is uncomfortable with it, or one partner feels understood and one feels left out. With FIT, we catch this before you leave, and can talk about how to improve things, so each of you goes home feeling satisfied.

How FIT integrates with other approaches

FIT is not a theory of therapy. It’s a way to use feedback from you to improve your therapy experience. That means it integrates well with any therapeutic approach.

Further down this page, you’ll see a list of counseling approaches I can integrate into my work with you. These are powerful theories that have helped millions of people. What makes FIT special is it guides us to the approach that makes the most sense to you, and let’s all of us know that what we’re doing is working.

Research support for FIT

Research shows that FIT, also called Client-Directed, Outcome-Informed therapy (CDOI), is almost four times as effective as conventional relationship and marriage counseling, and can cut the risk of separation and divorce in half.

See this article for an introductory discussion about the power of FIT, and this paper for a research study showing how FIT can dramatically improve the success of couples therapy.

Approaches I can integrate into our counseling sessions

(Note: This is technical information in case you’re interested. You do not have to understand any of these terms to work with me. I speak in plain English!)