THE SAN FRANCISCO PSYCHOTHERAPY RESEARCH GROUP (SFPRG)

The San Francisco Psychotherapy Research Group (SFPRG) was started over thirty years ago by Joe Weiss and Harold Sampson, two psychoanalysts in San Francisco who had a different vision of how psychotherapy works. Weiss’ humanistic theory of psychotherapy said that patients want to get better.  Weiss called his theory “Control Mastery Theory” because he believed that people exert a tremendous amount of unconscious control in their lives in order to master difficult situations that challenge them.  He observed that patients aren’t just passive recipients of psychotherapy but come to therapy with a strategy to change.  Weiss taught that if therapists could “read” that strategy, figure out how patients test them, and understand what steps patients were taking in order to change, therapists could be much more effective in helping them overcome their difficulties and live more deeply meaningful and fulfilling lives.

    Not only did Joe Weiss develop a new theory of how therapy works, he and Hal Sampson developed a research group to empirically test Control Mastery Theory. The research has shown that therapists who tune into the patient’s strategy to get better clearly result in better outcome, immediately in the session and over time in the therapy. The research testing Weiss’ theory of how people get better in therapy is respected world-wide. To date, over 100 articles and books have been published furthering the theory and its practice.  You can click on SFPRG.org to access the entire bibliography of the group’s research and writing.

     Sampson and Weiss’ personal warmth and intelligence have inspired a generation of psychotherapists in the San Francisco Bay Area, across the country, and around the world.  Professionals of all types—psychiatrists, psychologists, and social workers, come to San Francisco to study and do research with SFPRG.  There is a regular teaching program of conferences and seminars, collaborating with experienced clinicians, academicians, and psychology students from all over the world, including Norway, Switzerland, Italy, Germany, Spain, Eastern Europe, Cuba, and South America.

    SFPRG opened its Clinic in 2001, which offers outstanding low fee therapy to the community and provides an excellent clinical training program for graduate and post-graduate students in psychology and social work.  The Clinic has the capacity to see over 100 clients in individual, couples, and family therapy each year. Supervisors and teaching staff are experienced Control Mastery psychotherapists who volunteer their expertise and time to train clinical interns.  In addition to its low-fee Clinic, SFPRG offers free services to the community, including lecture series on parenting.

  To link to SFPRG.org, click here.