DR MICHAEL YAPKO
Clinical Psychologist &
Author of 16 books

This 4-part MasterClass is based on Dr. Yapko’s recent book, The Discriminating Therapist: Asking “How” Questions, Making Distinctions, and Finding Direction in Therapy.

Psychologists, especially cognitive psychologists and cognitive neuroscientists, use the term “discrimination” to describe the process of making distinctions between different situations that then give rise to one’s reactions. For example, your reaction will be entirely different if you believe someone stepped on your foot by accident than if you believe he or she did so deliberately. Your ability to discriminate an intentional act of harm from a moment of mere clumsiness helps shape your reaction of either anger or tolerance toward the person.

Cognitive psychology, the study of how people think, has given rise to new understandings about how people gather and use information. This includes how people decide, usually at a level outside of awareness, what is salient to pay attention to in a given environment and, likewise, what is essentially irrelevant. When people get sidetracked into irrelevancy, paying too much attention to what doesn’t really matter and too little attention to what does, their perceptions and responses naturally lead them astray. More importantly, when someone’s perspective is so global or over-general that he or she simply doesn’t know how or what to decide, he or she is far more likely to make poor decisions on the basis of hurt or negative feelings, old history, misconceptions, or blind faith. There are many different ways of making key life decisions, and when one employs an ineffective one, the results can be enduringly painful. 

We will look at people through the lens of cognitive style and HOW they make the choices they make. Instead of following the therapy tradition of analyzing why someone makes the choices they make, The Discriminating Therapist focuses on how people choose. We will especially focus on what they failed to either notice or discriminate in their global response to some circumstance. From this gentler perspective, we can focus on the roles of missing skills or incorrect information relevant to making better decisions instead of simply pathologizing people. Through carefully constructed “how” questions that reveal the client’s ineffective decision-making framework, the goals of therapy quickly become clearer and the likelihood of hitting well-defined therapy targets with well-structured hypnosis sessions increases. The Discriminating Therapist provides an innovative and clearer approach to obtaining better and faster therapeutic results.

Dr Michael Yapko

Michael D. Yapko, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist residing in Southern California. He is internationally recognized for his innovative work in treating depression with active, brief psychotherapies. He routinely teaches to professional audiences all over the world. To date, he has been invited to present his ideas and strategic methods to colleagues in more than 30 countries across six continents, and all over the United States. He has conducted trainings in Australia more than 70 times.

Dr. Yapko has had a special interest that spans more than four decades in the intricacies of proactively treating the disorder of major depression. His social view of depression has considerable empirical support and encourages multi-dimensional treatments. He is the author of 16 books and editor of three others, and numerous book chapters and articles on the subject of depression. These include Keys to Unlocking Depression, Depression is Contagious, and Breaking the Patterns of Depression (newly available in audiobook form). His works have been translated into ten languages. He also wrote the authoritative section on “Treating Depression” for the Encyclopedia Britannica Medical and Health Annual. More information about Dr. Yapko’s work is available on his website: www.yapko.com.

Dr. Yapko is the recipient of numerous awards for his contributions to advancing the field of psychotherapy, including lifetime achievement awards from the American Psychological Association and The Milton H. Erickson Foundation.