Sometimes we can forget that we are not just Psychologists – we are also scientists.

I have seen psychologists hold off from trying their own new ideas in therapy, because their idea is not part of the established tried and true – which is a hallmark of that natural human desire to stay in safety. This could be because we’re afraid of not being effective or the perceived potential of harming our clients. It seems that we can be driven by a fear of failure, which can in turn consume an alternative desire to learn from failure.

I don’t know about you, personally I want to be in the camp that has the desire to learn from failure.

The issue is that when we give someone advice in the interest of avoiding failure, we can speak as if we’re stating fact; that we already know what will happen. Something we would often call “jumping to conclusions” if we saw it in our clients. Not only is this counter to how a scientist operates, we also may be very wrong in our predictions. A scientist will use sound established theory to generate a hypothesis; while they would be hopeful of finding the desired results, they will also be mindful of not attaching to any conclusions in testing their hypothesis. The difficulty in Psychology, is that it can be hard to know if we’re right in predicting an outcome, as we all know that nothing has been proven in the field of Psychology – and if nothing is proven, there can be no facts.

That is one reason why I so fervently believe in pursuing my new ideas in therapy, because it means that until we start establishing facts, there’s still a chance that new ideas could be right. Even if an idea has been tried before and came to nothing, who’s to say it’s not worth trying again with a small tweak? That question comes to mind whenever I have a fellow therapist say something to me like: “I tried that idea and it didn’t work, so you probably shouldn’t bother”. This kind of reasoning doesn’t sit well with me. If something doesn’t work the first time, or even the first few times, it would still be risky to draw the conclusion that it can’t work. Maybe the right buttons haven’t been pushed yet? For instance, if I have forgotten a password and my first attempt fails, I don’t just walk away and never try again, I give it a few more goes until I get the right combination. I think it’s persistence that is the mark of great inventors and scientists. They say it took Sir James Dyson 5,126 vacuum design attempts before he could get a properly working vacuum. So, if you tell me an idea can’t work, I’m going to have a real hard time believing you.

Be persistent and don’t attach to an outcome.

I’m not saying that we should throw caution to the wind and have no foresight whatsoever in attempting new things. A scientist’s approach is still considered and informed by established theory.

I’m also not directing this piece at anyone in particular; this urge that many psychologists have to avoid failure is something I have noticed over time. It’s just now that I have this blog, I feel like I have the confidence and avenue to share my observations. As is often the case, I’m mindful that if I’m talking about trying something new in how I do therapy and a fellow Psychologist starts by pointing out the reasons it may not work, that they have good intentions. They don’t want to see me hit a dead end, waste time, or fail.

I think the core issue here perhaps is whether failure is something we need to be avoiding? Or should we let ourselves and others fail more? After all, its failure, not success, that leads to growth and innovation.

This piece is also a reminder for myself as well, as I never want to discourage anyone from pursuing their ideas. One thing I do my best to remember to do, is that if I do point out my scepticism in someone’s idea, I will still make sure to encourage that person to still try their idea – emphasising the point that my scepticism is a message not a directive.

I may be stating the obvious here, but my worry is that in encouraging eachother to avoid failure, we are inadvertently slowing down progress and innovation. Psychology is a science, and the job of science is to nurture innovation, not stifle it.

If not for ourselves, we should be pursuing innovation for our clients. It’s what they expect and want us to do. If heart surgeons said: “you know what, we’re already pretty good at doing heart surgery, so let’s stop trying to get better at it” – that would be messed up. If I were a heart patient and knew that the profession had decided that it’s not worth trying to get the heart surgery success rate to 100%, I’d be petrified. Similarly, if I went to my clients and said: “I’ve decided that it’s best I stop trying new things in how I do therapy, I’m going to stick to the tried and true, because research is showing that as therapists we’re actually already adequately effective in getting good outcomes. So really there’s no reason to try and improve, how does that sound to you?”. They would be dumbfounded. If I were a client I would start going through the 5 stages of grief!

Because while we are effective in helping people as therapists, I would go so far to say that it’s unethical for us to not innovate. The main argument for not trying new things is so that we don’t cause harm, but I would argue that not trying new things has a much greater potential of being harmful. Because sure while we treat something like depression well now, who’s to say that one day we won’t get to the level of being able to treat it in one session; we only have the chance of getting there if we try and no chance at all if we don’t.

Don’t lose that inner scientist that is full of curiosity. Be persistent. Don’t attach to an outcome. Give yourself permission to experiment and let new data in. Let yourself and others risk failure, if you need safety, be safe in knowledge that even if you fail, you can try again. Remember that if you close yourself to trying new things out of a fear of failure, you are also closing yourself to innovation.

While writing, I just realised why not only this post means so much to me, but why Deliberate Practice does as well. I see it as my duty to improve how effective I am as a therapist. If I become more effective as a therapist, then I can help even more people, more effectively and efficiently. That’s all there is to it. So, if the research for now is saying that creating your own DP system is pretty much the best thing that helps us achieve better outcomes as therapists, then you better believe I’m going to drop everything else I was doing previously and pursue it with 1000% focus. If research identifies something more effective, then I will gladly jump ship, but unless that day comes this is where I stand.

To share just how effective my DP system has been; in October 2021 my client drop out rate was approximately 24.7% and the percentage of clients reaching a reliable increase in their well-being was 63.3% (n = 61 closed cases). Now as of August 2022 my drop out rate is now 17.6% and the percentage of clients reaching a reliable well-being increase is 70.4%! (n = 135 closed cases).

So please do me a favour, if you remember nothing else from my blog post today, remember this: If a fellow Psychologist is sharing an idea with you, go ahead and share any scepticism you may have, but don’t leave them hanging on that scepticism, encourage them to pursue their idea. Don’t stifle anyone’s pursuit to innovate. Encourage innovation.

If on the other hand you are someone that is sharing an idea, then give yourself permission to defend it, because if you don’t who will? Remember that while being open to feedback is important, it’s data that needs to be your guiding compass. If the data is telling you you’re wrong, don’t ignore it, be open to failure – there’s nothing wrong with going back to the drawing board.

P.S: If my thoughts today have got you thinking and you would like to keep thinking, then I also recommend checking out this piece, the writer’s tone is a blunt one, but just as valid and thought provoking: https://www.madinamerica.com/2022/07/psychs-winning-streak-failure-science-not-success/

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