My work through The Process View is reflected in a series of publications—books, chapters, and articles—that trace the evolution of this unifying perspective on change across diverse contexts of practice. These works outline how The Process View integrates effective approaches to therapy, supervision, and systems intervention.

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Books authored by J. Scott Fraser, PhD

Crisis Intervention: Using Tipping Points to Achieve Transformative Change in Therapy

By J. Scott Fraser, PhD (c) 2025. Washington, DC: APA Books.

This book shows mental health providers how to envision crises as time-limited windows of opportunity—as tipping points clients can seize to achieve new insights and move in positive directions in their lives. Aligns with APA Divisions 38 and 50. 

Most mental health practitioners have been trained to conduct risk assessments and to mitigate danger to their clients and those around them. However, many providers lack a thorough understanding of the cause and nature of mental health crises and struggle to safely and successfully provide crisis intervention. Instead of seeking to return clients in crisis to their previous baseline, providers can seize the opportunity presented by crises and tip them toward rapid resolution.

  • Scott Fraser provides kind, encouraging, and inspiring insight into the challenges of both psychotherapy and the essence of crisis intervention. Dr. Fraser’s relatable book is highly readable and practical... an evidence-based yet efficient approach to treatment... both helpful systematically and in practice guidelines, such as his process of change model. Highly recommended.

    —Charles R. Figley, PhD, Kurzweg Chair in Disaster Mental Health and School of Social Work, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA

  • Drawing on his extensive experience, Scott Fraser rewards us with an innovative and far-reaching orientation to crisis. Fraser poses a striking challenge to common sense responses to crises and provides rich illustrations of his counterintuitive view in action. A useful and deeply engaging work.

    —Kenneth J. Gergen, PhD, Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, PA

  • In his highly innovative volume, J. Scott Fraser offers a fresh, process-based approach to crisis intervention. His focus on tipping points, those critical moments of decision and change, aligns closely with what we know about the role of context, flexibility, and values in creating long-lasting change. This book invites practitioners to step into the dynamic flow of crises, not just to resolve them, but to use them as catalysts for growth. Fraser’s work speaks to anyone willing to see crises as precious windows of opportunity and is a necessary read for practitioners wishing to deepen their work when everything is on the line.

    —Steven C. Hayes, PhD, Foundation Professor Emeritus, University of Nevada, Reno, and originator of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT)

  • The tipping point interventions and the process of change model presented in this book are inspiring ways to work with people in crisis situations for optimal outcomes. This book is a must-read for professionals who work with clients in crisis situations and want a new way forward.

    —Toni Zimmerman, PhD, LMFT, Professor, Human Development and Family Studies Department, and Program Director for the Marriage and Family Therapy Graduate Program, Colorado State University, Fort Collinsuote source

  • Fraser offers a new vision of how to proceed in the context of crisis, centered in an overarching process of change model that includes a systemic vision that extends beyond the individual, and a view in which crisis is not equated with disaster but as presenting opportunities for fundamental change. Well written and filled with illustrative examples, the book is authored by a skillful clinician who has worked for years in this context. I highly recommend this book to all practicing mental health professionals, and this should be essential reading for all students in training to be psychotherapists.

    —Jay Lebow, PhD, Clinical Professor and Senior Scholar, The Family Institute at Northwestern and Northwestern University, Evanston, IL

  • This book masterfully extends the seminal Mental Research Institute brief therapy model to the arena of crisis intervention. Drawing on systemic and social constructivist ideas, Scott Fraser shows how crises such as trauma, suicidality, grief, domestic violence, and sexual assault present windows of opportunity for clinicians to tip vicious cycles of problem maintenance in new and positive directions through strategic, often counterintuitive intervention.

    —Michael J. Rohrbaugh, PhD, Professor Emeritus of Psychology, University of Arizona, Tucson

Unifying Effective Psychotherapies: Tracing the Process of Change

By J. Scott Fraser, PhD (c) 2018. Washington, DC: APA Books.

Mental health professionals have long debated what makes effective psychotherapy work. Is it a specific treatment modality, or a set of common factors such as a strong therapeutic relationship? J. Scott Fraser argues that both perspectives are correct. His transtheoretical, transdiagnostic framework identifies the process of change that underlies all effective treatments. From this viewpoint, all client problems boil down to negative, recurring cycles of thought and behavior. The goal of psychotherapy is to disrupt or reverse those cycles.

  • Replete with clinical wisdom, analytic clarity, and scholarly grounding, Fraser's book is a creative tour de force. We shall be exploring the implications of his process orientation to therapy for a long time to come.

    —Kenneth J. Gergen, PhD, Senior Research Professor, Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, PA; author of Relational Being: Beyond Self and Community

  • In this marvelous book, Fraser synthesizes a lifetime of research on the underlying principles for psychotherapy, culminating in this insightful process-centered view that emphasizes context. Covering a variety of problems ranging from anxiety and depression to couple and family difficulties, the author provides a glimpse into the future of psychotherapy.

    —Jay L. Lebow, PhD, ABPP, Senior Scholar and Senior Therapist, Family Institute at Northwestern and Northwestern University, Evanston, IL

  • Fraser offers a truly integrative and satisfying approach to the contentious and messy debate over specific treatments versus common factors by focusing on processes that can be linked to unique problems, relationships, and therapeutic situations. Practitioners, trainees, and treatment researchers alike will benefit from reading this engaging and remarkable text.

    —Timothy Anderson, PhD, Professor of Psychology, Department of Psychology, Ohio University, Athens

  • This one-of-a-kind therapy training text unifies specific empirically validated psychotherapies, including treatments for mood disorders and interpersonal problems, and fully integrates them with the process of change. It then translates this process into clinical practice. This will be an excellent resource for students who are planning to become counselors.

    —Toni Zimmerman, PhD, Professor of Human Development and Family Studies, Colorado State University, Fort Collins

Integrative Family and Systems Treatment (I-FAST): A Strengths-Based Common Factors Approach

By J. Scott Fraser, David Grove, Mo Yee Lee, Gilbert Greene, and Andy Solovey (c) 2014. Oxford University Press.

To provide an effective, affordable, and flexible approach to family treatment, the authors of this book developed and have conducted research on an approach they call Integrative Family and Systems Treatment (I-FAST): a meta-model organized around the common factors of family treatment. This book is a manual for how to faithfully and flexibly provide I-FAST, providing clear guidelines illustrated by case examples for not only how to provide I-FAST but also how to teach and supervise it as well as how to integrate I-FAST with the rest of an agency's services and programs.

  • Integrative Family and Systems Treatment is a timely addition to the metaframework movement. Fraser and colleagues' very readable text presents a metamodel of family therapy organized around common factors of effective treatment. The[y] do a skillful job of describing how practitioners can collaboratively construct frames with parents and youths to set up a treatment direction, as well as implement interventions that engage the family members and the systems in which they are involved.

    —Rachel M. Diamond, Jay Lebow, PsycCRITIQUES

  • I-FAST capitalizes on the common clinical skills already possessed by most practitioners, such as engaging authentically with all parties and systems involved, tracking interventions, and framing and reframing. This book provides a clear manual of how to implement the I-FAST. This manual is a great addition to a professional library for a new graduate or an established practitioner as it reminds us of the shared strengths across family and systems approaches to best serve the youth and families with whom we work.

    —The Family Psychologist

  • I have implemented the I-FAST program for the past 9 years using an in-home model. It is effective, flexible, and allows us to utilize the strengths of each individual practitioner. I-FAST is a great alternative to rigid and expensive family therapy models. This book provides a great overview and basic ins6tructions on teaching and supervising the model. I highly recommend.

    —Clinicial from Youngstown, Ohio. (Review from Goodreads.)

Second-Order Change in Psychotherapy: The Golden Thread that Unifies Effective Treatments

By J. Scott Fraser and Andy Solovey (c) 2006. Washington DC; APA Books.

A substantial body of evidence has shown psychotherapy to be helpful in ameliorating psychological suffering; however, intense debate persists over how, when, and why therapy works. The debate falls into two main camps, one arguing that some empirically supported treatments are therapeutic for specific problems, while others are less effective. The other camp posits that all approaches work equally well, as long as a strong therapist-client relationship and other common curative factors are present. Can both doctrines be correct? Fraser and Solovey assert that they can, but what is needed is a unifying framework of change that underlies both positions.

  • I have been interested in second order change in therapy for many years and this book made sense of this and explained how this works. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in second order change.

    —

    Zeev Crombie (Goodreads contributor)

  • I just finished reading this book and my first reaction is: WHOAH! The authors have created a situation where the ease of accessibility and flow of their metaphors added to the understanding of complex concepts, showing how mindful they were of their audience. They made sure it was understandable to just about everybody, and they modeled the very concepts they were expounding throughout the structure and writing style of the book. I will be placing this book on the required list for next year's clinical conference seminars in our graduate program, and I've already been telling students about it!

    K. McCloskey (Goodreads contributor)

  • Every once in a while there comes a book that is not only well-written, emperically sound, and well-researched, but also one which shifts my perspective. Second-Order Change in Psychotherapy by J. Scott Fraser and Andrew D. Solovey is a gold-mine find, and now at the top of that very small list. As a psychologist myself, I feel I have gotten such a good deal in buying this book. I emerged more aware of not only the latest research in terms of literature review in certain areas (depression, substance abuse, anxiety), but also how using the concept of second order shifts and second order change can create, initiate, enhancing, excite, and support change.

    Anne (Goodreads contributor)