Reddit mentions of Self-Determination Theory in Practice:: How to Create An Optimally Supportive Health Care Environment

Ha ha... You sound just like me - in the sense of having a lot of mixed emotions (less mixed these days...).

Basically, what lead me to consider quitting was that I felt totally ineffective and a bit of a fraud (in the sense that colleagues and patients seemed to have a positive impression of me but I was too painfully aware of my shortcomings). Also, the job was just a lot more stressful than it was satisfying. There are different kinds of stressful. I have no problem with the stressful that results from being really busy - like getting a bunch of dysphagia consults at the end of the day on Friday. That's can be exciting in a weird way. The kind of stressfull that I LOATHE is the kind that comes from not knowing what to do. Now, here's something important about "not knowing what to do," it doesn't bother me so much when I know that no one knows what to do - and that's the benefit of knowing the research. It prevents you from blaming yourself about things that are NOT reasonable to blame yourself about. There are limits to our science/understanding. But if you don't have a good grasp of the research on a disorder you're treating, it will be easy to imagine that you should be achieving more results than you are. All of the lecturing directed our way is about knowing the research so you know what to do! No one says that there's equal benefit to knowing the limits of what we can do...

I'm satisfied with the work when I feel a certain amount of confidence about it. Early in my career, I spent most of my time reading the research on different treatments. That helped a lot, but if I had to do it over again, I'd do a couple of things differently. First, I'd focus more on reading and understanding theories related to my work. It's not as immediately satisfying as reading treatment research, and it can be a rat's nest of different ideas and concepts, but eventually it allows you do to develop a depth of understanding that you'll never get by just know different treatments (and FOR SURE you'll never get there by relying on CEUs). Theory allows you to understand WHY something works or doesn't work and that's been the key to my confidence and it allows me to develop my own treatments and feel confident that they have a strong rationale. I like feeling creative at work and feeling confident that I can develop my own treatments or modify others' treatments is satisfying. The second area, and this has been HUGE for me, is to really understand the science of motivation. When it comes right down to it, the reason our clients do or don't maximize their outcomes is not because we chose the right treatment, it's determined by how engaged and persistent our patients are. There are two theories (in order of importance) that I think are supremely helpful to SLPs, no matter what age group or disorder they treat. By far, Self-determination theory has been the most useful to me followed by self-efficacy theory..

Here are the book I would by and start to devour:
The Bible of SDT https://www.amazon.com/Self-Determination-Theory-Psychological-Motivation-Development/dp/1462538967/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=ryan+deci&qid=1565971431&s=gateway&sr=8-1

Useful books for understanding how to put SDT into practice:
https://www.amazon.com/Self-Determination-Theory-Practice-Supportive-Environment-ebook/dp/B06W9P1XTY/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=la+guardia+self-determination&qid=1565971515&s=gateway&sr=8-1

https://www.amazon.com/Art-Science-Motivation-Therapists-Children/dp/1849051259/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=ziviani+motivation&qid=1565971561&s=gateway&sr=8-1

https://www.amazon.com/Goal-Setting-Motivation-Therapy-Engaging-ebook/dp/B00WRNEM4S/ref=sr_1_1?qid=1565971587&refinements=p_27%3AJenny+Ziviani&s=books&sr=1-1&text=Jenny+Ziviani

Two of the books above are focused on Kids and the first is focused on adults. All of them are useful no matter what age or didorder you work with because the factors that influence motivation are universal.

Finally, I would find a way to get trained in Motivational Interviewing (MI). But I would not do it until I had developed some familiarity with SDT and self-efficacy theory. One of the weaknesses of MI is that it was not developed out of any theoretical foundation, which limits its applicability. Also, MI doesn't do a very good job of helping us understand why a motivational intervention may or may not work, doesn't do a great job helping us understand all of the influences on motivation, or why some goals are more motivating than other, etc. The benefit of learning MI is that it will give you a great toolbag of counseling techniques that you can leverage in order to put theories like SDT into practice.

Sorry for the long ass response. There's probably lots of typos but I'm too busy right now to go back and fix them.