Philip C. Kendall is Distinguished University Professor and Laura H. Carnell Professor of Psychology at Temple University. He is also Director of the Child and Adolescent Anxiety Disorders Clinic (CAADC) at the university. Dr. Kendall is an active researcher, scholar, and clinician and has approximately 800 publications, with his treatment programs having been translated into over a dozen languages. Most recently, he was awarded the 2019 Career/Lifetime Achievement Award conferred at the ABCT annual convention. He is past president of both the Society of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology (Division 53) of APA as well as the Association for the Advancement of Behavior Therapy (AABT, now ABCT).
Our own research shows that it is important to train and evaluate psychotherapists along two dimensions, adherence to the evidence-based psychological protocol so that it is delivered as intended, but also competence in its administration. We have discovered that adhering too closely to the protocol in sessions is consistently associated with lower ratings of competence. But how can a therapist be trained to administer the treatment with integrity to achieve the best results while at the same time achieving maximal competence? Now, Phil Kendall, one of the experts in the world in this area, has put together leading developers of evidence-based psychological treatments that demonstrates how to be flexible, and therefore competent, in delivering these interventions with integrity. Every clinicians or clinician in training should be familiar with these strategies.