This is a report from the 1987 Nordic Symposium on Psychotherapy, at which Nordic psychiatrists acquired expert advice on research in psychotherapy. For 3 days in June 1987 Scandinavian psychotherapy researchers met with Lester Luborsky in Stockholm. Outcome research has demonstrated not only that psychotherapy generates benefits but also that most systematically carried out psychotherapies are about equally effective. On the basis of research findings, specific effects of psychotherapy, criteria for the goals of psychotherapy, the value of taping therapies, operationally defined concepts and measures in process research, psychotherapy for psychotic patients, and short-term psychodynamic therapies were discussed, among other subjects. There is now rather good empirical evidence that some benefits of psychotherapy, in terms of both symptoms and inner psychodynamic structures, can be related to specific effects of the psychotherapy given. The conclusion from a review of several associative clinical outcome ...