Psychotherapy Outcome Research: Issues and Questions

Subjective experience of the origin and development of avoidant personality disorder

OBJECTIVE

To better understand how persons diagnosed with avoidant personality disorder (AVPD) make sense of the origin and development of their current everyday struggles.

METHODS

Persons with AVPD (N = 15) were interviewed twice using semi-structured qualitative interviews, which were analyzed through interpretative-phenomenological analysis. Persons with the first-hand experience of AVPD were included in the research.

RESULTS

The superordinate theme, "a story of becoming forlorn," encompassed three main themes: "it goes all the way back to when I was little," "there was a distance between others and me," and "transitions made it worse."

CONCLUSIONS

Though the results are not necessarily specific to AVPD, the findings clarify how people with AVPD can make sense of their current struggles by constructing developmental life stories in the interplay between themselves as persons and the growing demands of their social world. Furthermore, childhood relational vulnerabilities may challenge the ongoing development of social cognition and skills.

Effectiveness of Open-Ended Psychotherapy Under Clinically Representative Conditions

OBJECTIVE

This study investigates the effectiveness of open-ended psychotherapy in a large, naturalistic, and diverse patient cohort using rigorous and multifaceted assessments.

METHOD

Patients (N = 370) in open-ended psychotherapy completed an extensive set of self-report measures and diagnostic interviews, including long-term follow-up in order to assess stability of outcomes. About half of the patients qualified for a personality disorder at the onset of treatment. Treatments were open-ended, and on average therapists provided substantially larger treatment doses than common in the literature.

RESULTS

A substantial majority recovered from their respective Axis I (58%) and/or Axis II (55%) disorders during treatment. Patients also experienced large positive changes in self-report measures of overall psychiatric symptoms and moderate positive changes in self-reported interpersonal problems, while very few (< 3%) demonstrated negative development. The patients maintained their diagnostic and self-assessed changes at a two-and-a-half-year follow-up. In contrast, self-reported occupational functioning showed minimal improvement throughout the treatment and follow-up phase.

CONCLUSION

A naturalistic patient cohort undergoing open-ended psychotherapy demonstrates substantial and stable improvements.

Evidence-Based Therapies, Evidence-Based Practice, and the Intersection of Nomothetic and Idiographic Foundations of Psychotherapy Research and Application: A Reply to Shean

This article is a commentary on "Psychotherapy Outcome Research: Issues and Questions" by Glenn Shean (this issue). While we agree with a couple of Shean's points, such as over-reliance on diagnoses and lack of attention to global measures of quality of life and functioning, there are several very substantive points of disagreement. We argue that evidence-based therapies and evidence-based practice occupy a central role in developing effective and non-harmful therapies. Shean conflates evidence-based therapies and evidence-based practice in a way that is not representative of how science is intended to advance everyday treatment delivery. We further contest Shean's notion that reliance on empirically based research is limiting to clinicians and instead argue that it offers a helpful and pragmatic starting point for clinical decision making with each unique patient. Further, evidence-based practice, in contrast to evidence-based therapies, represents the model ideal for service delivery, rather than a slavish adherence to protocols employed in randomized clinical trials. Finally, we argue that both nomothetic and idiographic approaches are valid and important in the ongoing advancement of modern psychotherapy, a position wholly consistent with the evidence-based practice movement.