Monitoring the Counseling Relationship and Client Progress as Alternatives to Prescriptive Empirically Supported Therapies

Many insurance companies and professional organizations have increasingly stipulated that mental health professionals use interventions that have been classified as empirically supported therapies (ESTs). Though the EST movement aims to provide clinicians with straightforward, evidence-based interventions for making treatment planning decisions, there are several practical and scientific barriers to the wholesale implementation of ESTs by mental health counselors. These barriers will be discussed, and two alternative strategies—cultivation of the counseling relationship and routine outcomes monitoring—will be presented as evidence-based alternatives to prescriptive ESTs.