Personalizing Therapy

Helping clients to establish goals and articulate preferences for psychotherapy are important methods for clinicians of all orientations. These evidence-based practices can help to establish and develop the alliance, facilitate client empowerment and insight, and optimize tailoring psychotherapy to the individual client. In Personalizing Therapy, Dr. Mick Cooper demonstrates how goals can be established in an intake session using a flexible, dialogical approach. Assessing and accommodating (where possible) client preferences is integral to the APA’s definition of evidence-based practice, and is associated with reduced drop out and improved alliance and outcomes.

In this video, we see how clients can be encouraged to express any strong preferences for psychotherapy, including through the use of a psychometrically-validated tool: the Cooper-Norcross Inventory of Preferences (C-NIP). Hosted by Dr. Cheri Marmarosh, Personalizing Therapy showcases the ways in which psychotherapy can be tailored to each client through goal-setting and accommodating client preferences.

Goal-setting and establishing client preferences are the cornerstone of personalizing therapy. Goal setting is a nuanced and complex practice that needs to be tailored to each individual client. Typically, therapists can start the process of setting goals by inviting clients to describe what has brought them to psychotherapy. This can then lead on to a process of inquiring into, and provisionally agreeing on, the aims of the psychotherapy work. Written goals can be formulated and regularly monitored using an outcome measure such as the Goals Form. Research suggests that goals may be most helpful for clients when they are "approach" goals (rather than "avoidant" goals), and internally-derived rather than set by external parties. Establishing "small steps" for psychotherapy—attainable goals that can then support the basis for further achievements—can be a helpful strategy across different orientations.

Alongside setting the goals for psychotherapy, clients may also have preferences for the particular methods or style that they would like the psychotherapist to adopt. For instance, while some clients may want the psychotherapist to be quite challenging in the work, others may want a more supportive approach.

Mick Cooper, PhD, is professor of counselling psychology at the University of Roehampton, UK, and a practicing counselling psychologist. He is cofounder of the pluralistic approach to psychotherapy: an integrative practice that emphasizes psychotherapist–client collaboration and the tailoring of psychotherapy to the individual client. Over the course of his career, Dr. Cooper’s research and scholarship has focused on each of the three elements of the alliance: the establishment of goals in psychotherapy and the philosophy underlying goal-oriented practices; assessing and accommodating client preferences on psychotherapy tasks; and the establishment of a relationally deep bond. Most recently, Dr. Cooper’s work has focused on the interface between psychotherapy and social justice perspectives.

Dr. Cooper’s books in these areas include Pluralistic Counselling and Psychotherapy (2nd ed., coauthored with Dr. John McLeod, Sage, 2026), Working with Goals in Counselling and Psychotherapy (coedited with Dr. Duncan Law, Oxford University, 2018), Personalizing Psychotherapy: Assessing and Accommodating Client Preferences (coauthored with Dr. John Norcross, APA, 2021), Working at Relational Depth in Counselling and Psychotherapy (2nd ed., coauthored with Dr. Dave Mearns, Sage, 2018), and Psychology at the Heart of Social Change: Developing a Progressive Vision for Society (Policy, 2023). Dr. Cooper has also published a wide range of research articles in these areas, along with leading research on school-based humanistic counselling. In 2014, Dr. Cooper received the Carmi Harari Mid-Career Award from Division 32 of the APA.

Law, D. & Cooper, M. (Eds.) (2018). Working with goals in counselling and psychotherapy. Oxford University.

Cooper, M., & McLeod, J. (2011). Pluralistic counselling and psychotherapy. Sage.

Pluralistic Practice: Celebrating Diversity in Therapy.opens in new window

Mick Cooper Training and Consultancy.opens in new window

APA Videos

Client-Directed Outcome-Focused Psychotherapy
Scott D. Miller, PhD

Evidence-Based Treatment
Larry E. Beutler, PhD

Existential-Humanistic Therapy Over Time
Kirk J. Schneider, PhD

Integrative Therapy
John C. Norcross, PhD

Multicultural Orientation in Psychotherapy
Cynthia de las Fuentes, PhD

Therapeutic Assessment With Adults
Stephen E. Finn, PhD

APA Books

Personalizing Psychotherapy: Assessing and Accommodating Client Preferences.
John C Norcross and Mick Cooper

The Heart and Soul of Change, 2nd ed.
Barry L Duncan, Scott D. Miller, Bruce E. Wampold, and Mark A. Hubble

Existential-Humanistic Therapy, Third Edition
Kirk J. Schneider and Orah T. Krug

Multicultural Care: A Clinician's Guide to Cultural Competence
Lillian Comas-Diaz

On Becoming a Better Therapist: Evidence-Based Practice One Client at a Time, 2nd ed.
Barry L. Duncan

Person-Centered Care for Mental Illness: The Evolution of Adherence and Self-Determination
Patrick W. Corrigan