The authors discuss five key common factors: the therapeutic relationship, motivation, corrective experiencing, insight, and self-efficacy, which serve as heuristics for therapists of any background.

Each factor is broken down into a set of core principles, intervention concepts, and example techniques, such as motivational interviewing skills, confronting distress to move towards change, adopting a multicultural orientation, and empowering clients.

Deliberate practice methods are provided so that clinicians can rehearse common factor approaches and integrate them into their own work.

Reviewing past efforts to define actionable common factors--including the contextual model of therapy--as well as transtheoretical studies and techniques, the book provides a uniquely well-defined common factors model of treatment and paves the way for future innovations.