Methodological Problems in Identifying Efficacious Psychotherapies

National discussions of health-care delivery systems have renewed the effort to identify empirically validated psychotherapies. Although the logic of efficacy studies in psychotherapy, which are used to empirically establish the efficacy of psychotherapy, is relatively simple, the validity of inferences from these studies are ambiguous and the focus on outcome obscures other important aspects of psychotherapy. Problems related to (a) common versus specific confounds, (b) difficulties in disproving the uniform efficacy supposition, and (c) hazards in standardizing treatments are discussed. These problems make developing criteria for establishing empirically validated treatments difficult; a currently proposed set of criteria for proving treatment efficacy is critiqued.Die in den USA gefuhrte Diskussion uber das System der Gesundheitsversorgung hat zur Erneuerung von Bemuhungen beigetragen, empirisch validierte Psychotherapien zu identifzieren. Obwohl die Logik von Effektivitatsstudien in der Psychotherapie...

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