Validated forms of psychotherapy may lead to better-validated psychotherapy.

Abstract

The members of Division 12's Task Force on Promotion and Dissemination of Psychological Procedures have recently compiled a list of 22 “well-established treatments” and seven “probably efficacious treatments.” The lists were created after the Task Force had searched for and selected positive psychotherapy outcome studies that met a categorical set of criteria attesting to the methodological adequacy of the studies. Reacting to the Task Force report, Sol Carfield expresses the conviction that we are not yet at the point where we should attempt to draw valid efficacy distinctions among psychological treatments. This commentary describes and analyzes Carfield's concerns, then proposes an alternative effort, designed, like the Task Force endeavor, to move psychotherapy research toward a sustained practical outcome. In contrast to the Task Force approach, the proposed undertaking would draw efficacy distinctions among psychological and pharmacological treatments for a broader range of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th ed.) disorders; moreover, it would utilize a dimensional rather than categorical system for judging the methodological adequacy of outcome studies. By comparing the resultant contrasting lists of effective treatments, we should be able to evaluate the differential worth of dimensional and categorical views of methodological adequacy; in so doing, we might be find ourselves in a position to develop even more thoroughly grounded descriptions of effective psychological treatments.