TOWARD SPECIFIC PSYCHOLOGICAL THERAPIES FOR SPECIFIC CONDITIONS

Comparative psychotherapy research has traditionally failed to find that one treatment is uniformly more beneficial than another. The lack of methodological and conceptual consistency among researchers, however, may have masked significant effects. This article presents a speculative model for predicting differential rates of therapeutic change. Through a review of 52 comparative psychotherapy studies, an effort was made to assess certain hypothesized relationships between the characteristics constituting the model and a variety of psychological treatment procedures. The use of the model for generating and guiding research is discussed. (69 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved). © 1979 American Psychological Association.