Despite the claims of various promoters of new therapeutic techniques, there is no evidence supporting the superiority of one technique over another.

However, there is ample research data showing that responsiveness to a patient’s particular problems and goals is a strong predictor of effective therapy. In other words, understanding what the patient wants and how they want to use therapy to get it.

Over the past several decades, SFPRG has developed an empirically derived method of case formulation – the Plan Formulation Method (PFM) – that serves as a useful guide for decoding the patient’s plan and offers coaching to the therapist as to how to be most effective.

The PFM provides a simple, reliable, learnable framework for understanding a patient’s conscious and unconscious goals, the pathogenic beliefs or schemas that prevent the patient from pursuing goals, traumatic experiences that contributed to the development of pathogenic beliefs, and how the therapist can optimize responsiveness to the patient’s problems, needs, and goals. In short, it points you towards not just WHAT to do, but HOW to be as a particular person’s therapist. It helps you to personalize your therapy. There is research evidence suggesting that therapists who are trained in PFM and use the formulation to guide their interventions are more responsive to their patients and achieve superior therapeutic results.
 
You will learn the fundamentals of The Plan-Formulation Method, also known as Control-Mastery Case Formulation, and begin applying it immediately to your cases. You'll learn how to integrate the PFM into your existing manner of working and strengthen the work you're already doing.