By Stephen C. Schultz I recall a childhood rhyme that went something like this: “...sugar and spice and everything nice… that’s what little girls are made of!” As the father of three daughters and one son, there is no doubt about the truthfulness of that saying. A couple of weeks ago, I was in San Diego with my family. We were down at Seaport Village, right on the bay, having lunch. It was a beautiful day—sun shining, light breeze—and we were eating on an outside deck. We were engaged in a conversation about what we wanted to do later that day when I noticed my youngest daughter, a fifth grader, was focused on something else. I turned to see what she was gazing at. She was following the movements of a transient man who had walked up onto the deck and was systematically searching the garbage cans for food. He was looking in each receptacle, reaching in to move the contents around. At one can, his hand came out with a partially eaten sandwich of some kind. He reached back in and grab...
By Stephen C. Schultz Therapists are highly trained to guide, support, and assess progress. Yet, research continues to show that even experienced clinicians have mixed results at predicting which clients will improve, drop out, or struggle in therapy. This isn’t a critique of therapists—it’s a reality supported by data. And for those who place trust in residential treatment programs—families, school districts, educational consultants, and Managed Care Organizations (MCOs)—this insight is critical. At Oxbow Academy , we take this seriously. That’s why we use validated, research-backed tools to supplement clinical intuition and track meaningful progress in real time. Research Shows: Intuition Isn’t Enough In a foundational study by Hannan et al. (2005), therapists failed to recognize which of their clients were likely to experience treatment failure—even when objective outcome data pointed to risks. Similarly, Hatfield et al. (2010) demonstrated that therapists tend to overestima...