So Bob, patron emails, let's read them. What do you say? Let us read them.

Anonymous listener from Texas says, what are some ways therapists can assess their own

effectiveness as a therapist? I'm a novice therapist. And this question of am I effective?

How can I really know has been really weighing on me? I started a new job a few months ago,

which involved inheriting a substantial number of clients from the previous therapist caseload.

Many of these clients told me that they did not feel therapy. It was effective with that

previous therapist. And many offered examples as to why, for example, one described that he

lectured them about something they did not ask about. These types of examples always disturb me

because I'm sure that the therapist feels he is very competent and effective, just as I feel

I try to be, yet the clients are left with a negative experience. I also have heard some stats

about therapists typically overestimating their effectiveness. Again, disturbing. Do you have any

methods or ideas on how therapists can get a genuine reading on their effectiveness with clients?

Thank you for your time. This podcast has been critical for my growth as a therapist throughout

the grad school and beyond. I truly think I am a more capable and effective therapist for having

processed so many of these episodes over the last few years. I feel so grateful for that.

So Bob, how can we, how do you gauge your effectiveness?

I don't know. Let's see. Here's what I know about that. You cannot ask clients directly if you

were helpful and hope to get an accurate answer because that is a high demand question. So

somebody will feel compelled to say, yes, you were helpful. And here's how you helped me or whatever.

And it may or may not be or might partially be reflective of how helpful you actually were.

So you can ask, you can look for markers like does their quality of life seem improved? You could

actually do measures, right? I mean, I guess you could. I don't think most of us do. I don't think

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