Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-vdxz6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T07:12:38.294Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Outcome in Psychotherapy Evaluated by Independent Judges

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

Sidney Bloch
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, University of Oxford, The Warneford Hospital, Oxford OX3 7JX
Gary Bond
Affiliation:
Department of Behavioural Sciences, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois
Brandon Qualls
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island
Irvin Yalom
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, Stanford University, Stanford, California
Erik Zimmerman
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut

Abstract

To overcome common limitations in assessing the outcome of psychotherapy, the following method was used: independent assessment by teams of experienced psychotherapists; individualized measures of outcome; and videotaped clinical interviews to allow the judges to rate, at one sitting, a patient's clinical state before and after eight months of therapy. Agreement between the judges' ratings was low both for the severity of the clinical state and for its outcome. Possible reasons for this low agreement are discussed.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1977 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Battle, C. C., Imber, S. D., Hoehn-Saric, R., Stone, A. R., Nash, E. R. & Frank, J. D. (1966) Target complaints as criteria of improvement. American Journal of Psychotherapy, 20, 184–92.Google Scholar
Derogatis, L. R., Lipman, R., Rickels, K., Uhlenhuth, E. H. & Covi, L. (1974) The Hopkins Symptom Checklist (HSCL): A self-report symptom inventory. Behavioural Science, 19, 115.Google Scholar
Grosz, H. J. & Grossman, K. G. (1968) Clinician's response style: A source of variation and bias in clinical judgements. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 73, 207–14.Google Scholar
Kiresuk, T. J. & Sherman, R. E. (1968) Goal-attainment scaling: A general method of evaluating comprehensive community mental health programs. Community Mental Health Journal, 4, 443–53.Google Scholar
Koran, L. M. (1975) The reliability of clinical methods, data and judgements. New England Journal of Medicine, 293, 642–6, 695–701.Google Scholar
Malan, D. H. (1973) The outcome problem in psychotherapy research. Archives of General Psychiatry, 29, 719–29.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Malan, D. H., Bacal, H. A., Heath, E. S. & Balfour, F. H. (1968) A study of psycho-dynamic changes in untreated neurotic patients. British Journal of Psychiatry, 114, 525–51.Google Scholar
Ruggels, W. L., Armor, D. J., Poliuch, J. M., Mother-head, A. & Stephen, M. A. (1975) A follow-up study of clients at selected alcoholism treatment centres funded by NIAAA. Stanford Research Institute Final Report.Google Scholar
Siegel, S. (1956) Non-parametric Statistics, pp 229–38. New York: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.