What's the Therapist's Toolkit?

The Therapist's Toolkit includes hundreds of pages of state-of-the-art assessment and treatment tools for the mental health professional. Additional clinicians can be licensed to share your Toolkit.

Why purchase the Therapist's Toolkit?

Many popular tests for common disorders such as depression must be purchased for approximately $1 per copy, or more. If you have a busy practice or clinic, royalty fees can run into the thousands of dollars per year—and you own nothing at the end of the year. 

In contrast, when you obtain the Therapist's Toolkit, you become licensed to reproduce large numbers of superb assessment and treatment tools in your clinical practice for your entire career, so you will not have to pay royalties each time you administer a psychological test. Multi-user site licenses are also available for group practices and institutions, providing additional savings.

How do these tools compare with other instruments?

Many widely used assessment tests for depression, anxiety, and other disorders were created decades ago. Often, they are not user-friendly and do not have outstanding psychometric properties. The wording is frequently unclear and the response options may be frustrating as well. Sometimes, the symptom choices are inappropriate. In contrast, the instruments in the Therapist's Toolkit are exceptionally user-friendly for the clinician and patient alike, and have superb psychometric properties. Most have reliabilities above 90%, with many above 95%, and are highly correlated with other, well-established instruments.

The Toolkit also includes large numbers of incredibly useful treatment tools that will enhance your work with individuals and groups, regardless of your therapeutic orientation.

Free 2009 Upgrade

If you order the Toolkit now, you will be entitled to a free 2009 Upgrade. All you have to do is email me once you've received your Toolkit in the mail. Your free upgrade will come as a series of massive email attachments that you can download for easy printing. I will send them out within two weeks of hearing from you. You must order the upgrade within one month of receiving your Toolkit.

This is a time-limited offer, so request the order form fairly soon if you think you might be interested.

Click here to see a partial list of contents

What’s the EASY Diagnostic System?

As mental health professionals, we have a medical / legal obligation to screen all new patients systematically and accurately for a broad range of Axis I and II disorders, to assign the diagnoses according to DSM-IV criteria, and to record the diagnoses in the chart. But everyone knows that this is virtually impossible from a practical perspective. For example, one of the most widely used structured diagnostic interviews for Axis I and II disorders can take up to three or four hours, or more. In addition, structured interviews can be exceptionally frustrating due to the dichotomous, non-intuitive nature of the DSM-IV diagnostic criteria. And the diagnoses may not be reliable due to the subjective nature of the criteria and the arbitrary cut-off points described in DSM-IV for the various “disorders.”

As a result, most therapists simply ignore the diagnosis step and scribble some plausible diagnosis in the chart, such as “Adjustment Disorder with depression.” Sometimes you can get away with this, but you may set yourself up for legal or clinical problems down the road if you don’t do a comprehensive diagnostic assessment and document your findings in the chart. For example, patients with Axis II diagnoses, such as Borderline, Narcissistic, or Paranoid PD, may be clinically challenging or litigious, and many patients may have violent or suicidal urges you are not aware of, to say nothing of the predictable clinical problems associated with undiagnosed alcohol or drug abuse, or the patient’s hidden desires to maintain symptoms in order to obtain disability or win a lawsuit.

What’s the solution to this problem?

Over the past ten years, I have been developing, refining, and validating the EASY Diagnostic System for Axis I and Axis II. Patients can complete the Diagnostic Survey on their own at home between sessions or in the waiting room. Most patients can easily complete the survey in 30 to 45 minutes, or less. Then you can quickly review the answers during a therapy session and tick off the pre-coded diagnoses on the Diagnostic Summary Sheet in one of three categories: Unlikely, Possible, or Probable. In addition, you will automatically document the severity of the symptoms, since all disorders are assessed with highly reliable, dimensional scales.

This diagnostic system is comprehensive, quick and easy, and will provide you with a wealth of interesting and vitally important information, much of which you would not otherwise be aware of. The Diagnostic Survey includes highly reliable screening instruments for 67 of the most common Axis I and II disorders, including—

·       All the relational Disorders: plus Anger Toward Self, Anger Toward Others, Violent Urges, and the powerful Relationship Satisfaction Scale

·       Mood Disorders: Major Depression, Suicidal Urges, Dysthymic Disorder, Bipolar I and II Disorder, Cyclothymic Disorder

·       Anxiety Disorders: GAD, Panic, Agoraphobia, Phobias, five types of Social Anxiety, OCD

·       Stress and Trauma-Related Disorders: Adjustment Disorder, Acute Stress Disorder, PTSD

·       Somatic Disorders: Body Dysmorphic Disorder, Hypochondriasis, Chronic Pain Disorder

·       Habits and Addictions: Gambling, Drug Abuse / Dependence, Alcohol Abuse / Dependence, plus the new Cravings and Urges to Use scale

·       Eating Disorders: Binge Eating Disorder, Bulimia (Purging and Restricting types), Anorexia

·       Dissociative Disorders and Schizophrenia

·       All 10 Axis II Personality Disorders: including Clusters A, B, and C by specific disorder

You’ll also find a number of interesting subscales. For example, the screening for Dependent PD includes subscales for Neediness, Conflict Phobia, and the Fear of Being Alone. The Diagnostic Survey includes a superb motivational assessment instrument and screening for suicidal and violent urges, along with an assessment of the patient’s honesty and openness in filling out the survey. You’ll also receive EASY Diagnostic Guidebook with tips on how to assign diagnoses according to formal DSM-IV criteria, along with a table listing the reliabilities of all the screening instruments, and other useful tools such as the Suicidal Urges Screening Interview.

Click here to see a partial list of contents

You'll love the Therapist’s Toolkit and EASY Diagnostic System, and you can't beat the price. These tools will professionalize your practice, enhance your understanding of your patients, and boost your clinical effectiveness. Purchase of either includes a lifetime license for unlimited photocopying to use in your clinical work. No royalty fees! Additional details and pricing information can be found on the order forms.

The Therapist's Toolkit and EASY Diagnostic System
are designed for qualified mental health professionals only.