New directions in psychotherapy research.
About: This article is published in Journal of Abnormal Psychology.The article was published on 1970-08-01. It has received 90 citations till now. The article focuses on the topics: Behaviorism & Psychoanalytic theory.
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TL;DR: In this article, the authors proposed a model which describes dyadic social interactions in terms of complementary proportions of those underlying dimensions, where opposites appear at 180° angles whereas complementary behaviors appear at topologically similar positions on two separate planes.
Abstract: A brief review of the literature on structural analysis of interpersonal behavior is followed by a proposal which draws heavily from prior models, especially those of Schaefer and of Leary. The proposed model goes beyond previous ones in that it has a highly explicit structure which defines behavioral opposites, complements, and antidotes. Built on two axes named affiliation and interdependence, the model describes dyadic social interactions in terms of complementary proportions of those underlying dimensions. Opposite behaviors appear at 180° angles whereas complementary behaviors appear at topologically similar positions on two separate planes. Antidotes are defined as opposites of complements. Using the questionnaire method, the proposed structure has been tested by the responses of normal as well as psychiatric subjects. Analysis of these data by the techniques of autocorrelation, circumplex analysis, and factor analysis supports the model.
1,004 citations
Cites background from "New directions in psychotherapy res..."
...The need for such efforts has been detailed by Bergin and Strupp (1970) :...
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TL;DR: The question of equivalence between psychotherapy and clinical outcomes has been investigated extensively in the literature as discussed by the authors, with the conclusion that psychotherapy is more effective than clinical outcomes of different therapies.
Abstract: Despite clear demonstrations by process researchers of systematic differences in therapists' techniques, most reviews of psychotherapy outcome research show little or no differential effectiveness of different psychotherapies. This contradiction presents a dilemma to researchers and practitioners. Numerous possible solutions have been suggested. Some of these challenge the apparent equivalence of outcome, arguing that differential results could be revealed by more sensitive reviewing procedures or by more differentiated outcome measures. Others challenge the seeming differences among treatments, arguing that, despite superficial technical diversity, all or most therapies share a common core of therapeutic processes. Still others suggest that the question of equivalence is unanswerable as it is usually posed but that differential effectiveness of specific techniques might be found at the leve ! of brief events within therapy sessions. In spite of their diversity, many of the proposed solutions converge in calling for greater precision and specificity of theory and method in psychotherapy research. Despite the ple thora of purpor tedly distinct psychotherapeutic t rea tments (Parloff, 1976, 1984), influential reviews of comparat ive outcome research (Luborsky, Singer, & Luborsky, 1975; Smith, Glass, & Miller, i 980) together with frequently cited studies (e.g., Sloane, Staples, Cristol, Yorkston, & Whipple, 1975) appear to suppor t the conclusion that ou tcomes o f diverse therapies are generally similar. Efforts to base public policy r ecommenda t ions concerning menta l health care service provisions on scientific evidence have yielded only "a consensus, o f sorts, . . . on the question o f the efficacy of psychotherapy as a generic t r ea tment p r o c e s s . . , that psychotherapy is more effective than no t r ea tmen t " (VandenBos & Pino, 1980, p. 36). N o such consensus exists concerning the relative effectiveness of diverse therapies (e.g., DeLeon, VandenBos, & Cummings , 1983; Kiesler, 1985; Office of Technology Assessment, 1980). The verdict o f the Dodo bird in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (Carroll, 1865/ 1962), used as a subtitle by Luborsky et al. (1975), "Eve rybody has won and all must have prizes," captures this si tuation mos t vividly x and invites the question o f our present title: "Are all psychotherapies equivalent?" The s ta tement that two (or more) therapies are equivalent could have three quite different meanings. The first is equivalence o f o u t c o m e t h a t t rea tments yield ou tcomes that cannot be distinguished (the " D o d o bird verdict"). The second is equivalence of c o n t e n t t h a t the behavior o f part icipants in different therapies cannot be distinguished. The third is equivalence o f m e c h a n i s m that different psychotherapies employ c o m m o n principles o f psychological change. In this article, we first delineate the apparen t paradox: the lack o f differential effectiveness contrasted with evident technical diversity, that is, ou tcome equivalence contrasted with content nonequivalence. We then consider the resolutions o f the paradox that have been put forward, along with the a rguments and evidence that have been adduced in their support . We believe that considering alongside one another the traditionally separated research domains of therapy process and ou tcome brings into clearer focus the current strategic issues for psychotherapy
397 citations
Cites background from "New directions in psychotherapy res..."
...Bergin and Strupp (1970) advocated the latter approach for identifying therapeutic change mechanisms....
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TL;DR: This article is a user's guide to conducting empirically respectable case-based time-series studies in a clinical practice or laboratory setting.
Abstract: Both researchers and practitioners need to know more about how laboratory treatment protocols translate to real-world practice settings and how clinical innovations can be systematically tested and communicated to a skeptical scientific community. The single-case time-series study is well suited to opening a productive discourse between practice and laboratory. The appeal of case-based time-series studies, with multiple observations both before and after treatment, is that they enrich our design palette by providing the discipline another way to expand its empirical reach to practice settings and its subject matter to the contingencies of individual change. This article is a user's guide to conducting empirically respectable case-based time-series studies in a clinical practice or laboratory setting.
365 citations
Cites background from "New directions in psychotherapy res..."
...Barlow and Hersen (1984), Bergin and Strupp (1970), and Kazdin (1982, 1992) have long noted that the practitioner-generated case-based time-series design with baseline measurement fully qualifies as a true experiment and that it ought to stand alongside the more common group designs (e.g., the…...
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226 citations
TL;DR: The authors examines 32 important clinical and personality hypotheses of rational-emotive therapy (RET) and other modes of cognitive-behavior therapy and lists a large number of research studies that provide empirical confirmation of these hypotheses.
Abstract: This article examines 32 important clinical and personality hypotheses of rational-emotive therapy (RET) and other modes of cognitive-behavior therapy and lists a large number of research studies that provide empirical confirmation of these hypotheses. It concludes that (1) a vast amount of research data exists, most of which tends to confirm the major clinical and personality hypotheses of RET; (2) this data keeps increasing by leaps and bounds; (3) RET hypotheses nicely lend themselves to experimental investigation and therefore encourage a considerable amount of research; (4) researchers have not yet tested some of the major RET formulations and could do so with profit to the field of psychotherapy and personality theory.
148 citations
References
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Book•
01 Jan 1962
TL;DR: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions as discussed by the authors is a seminal work in the history of science and philosophy of science, and it has been widely cited as a major source of inspiration for the present generation of scientists.
Abstract: A good book may have the power to change the way we see the world, but a great book actually becomes part of our daily consciousness, pervading our thinking to the point that we take it for granted, and we forget how provocative and challenging its ideas once were-and still are. "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" is that kind of book. When it was first published in 1962, it was a landmark event in the history and philosophy of science. And fifty years later, it still has many lessons to teach. With "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions", Kuhn challenged long-standing linear notions of scientific progress, arguing that transformative ideas don't arise from the day-to-day, gradual process of experimentation and data accumulation, but that revolutions in science, those breakthrough moments that disrupt accepted thinking and offer unanticipated ideas, occur outside of "normal science," as he called it. Though Kuhn was writing when physics ruled the sciences, his ideas on how scientific revolutions bring order to the anomalies that amass over time in research experiments are still instructive in our biotech age. This new edition of Kuhn's essential work in the history of science includes an insightful introductory essay by Ian Hacking that clarifies terms popularized by Kuhn, including paradigm and incommensurability, and applies Kuhn's ideas to the science of today. Usefully keyed to the separate sections of the book, Hacking's essay provides important background information as well as a contemporary context. Newly designed, with an expanded index, this edition will be eagerly welcomed by the next generation of readers seeking to understand the history of our perspectives on science.
36,808 citations
Book•
[...]
01 Jan 1966
TL;DR: The Tacit Dimension, originally published in 1967, argues that such tacit knowledge - tradition, inherited practices, implied values, and prejudgments - is a crucial part of scientific knowledge.
Abstract: 'I shall reconsider human knowledge by starting from the fact that we can know more than we can tell', writes Michael Polanyi, whose work paved the way for the likes of Thomas Kuhn and Karl Popper. "The Tacit Dimension", originally published in 1967, argues that such tacit knowledge - tradition, inherited practices, implied values, and prejudgments - is a crucial part of scientific knowledge. Back in print for a new generation of students and scholars, this volume challenges the assumption that skepticism, rather than established belief, lies at the heart of scientific discovery.
13,830 citations
01 Jan 1974
TL;DR: The structure of scientific revolutions (1962) / Thomas Samuel Kuhn (1922-1996) is a book about the history of science and its discontents.
Abstract: A good book may have the power to change the way we see the world, but a great book actually becomes part of our daily consciousness, pervading our thinking to the point that we take it for granted, and we forget how provocative and challenging its ideas once were-and still are. "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" is that kind of book. When it was first published in 1962, it was a landmark event in the history and philosophy of science. And fifty years later, it still has many lessons to teach. With "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions", Kuhn challenged long-standing linear notions of scientific progress, arguing that transformative ideas don't arise from the day-to-day, gradual process of experimentation and data accumulation, but that revolutions in science, those breakthrough moments that disrupt accepted thinking and offer unanticipated ideas, occur outside of "normal science," as he called it. Though Kuhn was writing when physics ruled the sciences, his ideas on how scientific revolutions bring order to the anomalies that amass over time in research experiments are still instructive in our biotech age. This new edition of Kuhn's essential work in the history of science includes an insightful introductory essay by Ian Hacking that clarifies terms popularized by Kuhn, including paradigm and incommensurability, and applies Kuhn's ideas to the science of today. Usefully keyed to the separate sections of the book, Hacking's essay provides important background information as well as a contemporary context. Newly designed, with an expanded index, this edition will be eagerly welcomed by the next generation of readers seeking to understand the history of our perspectives on science.
11,039 citations
Book•
01 Jan 1969TL;DR: In psychotherapy, the subject matter is the person's behavior as mentioned in this paper, which is the only class of events that can be altered through psychological procedures, and therefore it is a meaningful subject matter of psychotherapy.
Abstract: ions as internal properties of clients rather than as hypothetical constructs of therapists has resulted in considerable confusion about the types of changes effected by different approaches to the modification of behavior. It is widely assumed that behavioral and psychodynamic approaches are concerned with fundamentally different subject matters. The latter methods supposedly treat complexes, repressed impulses, ego strengths and mental apparatuses, the underlying causes of behavior, whereas behavioral approaches are believed to modify only superficial behavior. This apparent difference in subject matter, however, exists primarily in the therapists’ conceptualizations, not in actual practice. Ego strength, to take an example, is a www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 235 hypothetical construct and not an entity within the client. One can neither observe nor modify hypothetical constructs. The person’s behavior— broadly defined to include cognitive, emotional, and motor expressions—is the only class of events that can be altered through psychological procedures, and therefore it is the only meaningful subject matter of psychotherapy. Similarly, stimulus variables are the only events that the therapist can modify to effect behavioral change. Psychotherapy, like any other social influence enterprise, is thus a process in which the therapist arranges stimulus conditions that produce desired behavioral changes in the client. If, for instance, a psychotherapist creates conditions that increase the frequency of the behaviors from which ego strength is inferred, the client will be said to have acquired increased ego strength as a function of treatment. On the other hand, if the frequency of www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 236 ego-strength behaviors has been reduced in the course of psychotherapy, the client has suffered a loss in ego strength. Clearly, ego strength is simply a hypothetical abstraction whose presumed behavioral referents are the only reality the psychotherapist can modify. In the final analysis, social-learning approaches and all other existing forms of treatment modify the same subject matter, namely, behavioral phenomena. Most discussions of change-inducing processes, however, focus on treating the inferences made from behavioral events as though these abstractions existed independently and caused their behavioral referents. Philosophers of science have cautioned against the attribution of causal potency to described properties of behavior. Their warnings have had little impact on personality theorizing. Neither traits nor types, as concepts, have www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 237 any real existence. They are merely words, and words do not exist in the eye of the observer nor in the people observed. A man can not be said to have either a type or a trait, but he can be said to fit either a type or a trait. At present the fit will be inexact, for dimensions of personality have not yet been quantified well enough to permit of accurate measurement. In the case of height, the measurement can be precise, and little confusion results from saying that a man has a certain height. Observation and concept are so closely related that the phrase is not ordinarily understood to mean more than it says, namely, that the extent of a given datum of observation in one direction fits a certain section of an ideal dimension of distance. But if an attempt is made to fit some mode of human conduct to the trait of courage, the looseness of correspondence between behavior and concepts leads to mischievous reification. The concept parts company with behavior, picks up undefined notions in its flight from reality, and finally acquires an independent real existence in its own right, so that when it is said that a man has courage, he will be thought of as the fortunate owner of something considerably www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 238 more significant than a certain pattern of behavior [Pratt, 1939, p. 115]. Similarly, a person who is plagued with “weak ego strength” will be viewed as suffering from something vastly more significant than the behavioral referents from which the construct is inferred. For purposes of further illustration, let us designate behaviors in which persons violate social and legal codes of behavior and frequently engage in assaultive activities as the external expressions of an inferred zoognick. Based on prevailing clinical practices, the zoognick would come to represent an intrapsychically functioning agent. An honorific causative power would be conferred upon this hypothetical zoognick, whereas the observed behavior from which its existence is inferred would be depreciated as superficial behavioral manifestations. Before long, www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 239 psychological tests would be constructed to measure zoognick strength on the basis of which diagnosticians would tautologically attribute clients’ behavior to the action of the underlying zoognick. Proceeding on the assumption that “patient variables are not conceived to be behaviors, but constructs concerning internal constellations” (Wallerstein, 1963), psychotherapeutic goals would be stated in terms of removing the pernicious zoognick. On the other hand, direct modification of the deviant behavior would be considered not only superficial but potentially dangerous, since elimination of the symptomatic expressions might force the zoognick to emerge in equally pernicious substitute forms. A sufficiently charismatic exponent of zoognick theory could undoubtedly develop a sizable following with the same extraordinary conviction in the vital importance and causative potency of www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 240 zoognicks as that shown by adherents of libidinal forces. Oedipal complexes, collective unconsciouses, and self-dynamisms. Finally, humanists would embrace zoognick theory as more befitting the complexities of human beings than those simplistic mechanistic doctrines that stubbornly insist that the zoognick is the deviant behavior rechristened. Most treatment approaches devote remarkably little attention to the selection of objectives; when they are specified (Mahrer, 1967), the intended outcomes generally include a variety of abstract virtues described in socially desirable terms, such as reorganization of the self, restoration of functional effectiveness, development of individuation and self-actualization, establishment of homeostatic equilibrium, where there is id there shall ego be and where superego was there shall conscious ego be, achievement of identity, www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 241 acceptance of self-consciousness, enhancement of ego strength, or the attainment of self-awareness, emotional maturity, and positive mental health. While some of these objectives allude to vaguely defined behavioral characteristics, most refer to nebulous hypothetical states. These abstractions convey little information unless they are further defined in terms of specifically observable behavior. Behavioral Specification of Objectives A meaningfully stated objective has at least two basic characteristics (Mager, 1961). First, it should identify and describe the behaviors considered appropriate to the desired outcomes. The term “behavior” is used in the broad sense to include a complex of observable and potentially measurable activities including motor, cognitive, and physiological classes of responses. www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 242 After the intended goals have been specified in performance, and preferably in measurable terms, decisions can be made about the experiences that are most likely to produce the desired outcomes. For example, the statement, “Increase the person’s self-confidence and self-esteem,” designates a therapeutic intent; but it furnishes little guidance, since it does not reveal the kinds of behaviors the person will exhibit after he has achieved increased self-esteem. Once self-esteem and the behaviors that will be esteem producing for a particular client have been delineated, one can arrange conditions that will create the requisite behaviors and thereby produce the condition of positive selfevaluation. In some instances learning vocational skills may be most relevant to acquiring selfesteem; in some cases developing interpersonal competencies that will secure positive responses from others may be most appropriate; in other www.freepsychotherapybooks.org 243 cases eliminating alienating social behaviors may be required if self-evaluation is to be altered; and finally, in cases where a person is relatively competent socially and vocationally, an increase in self-esteem behavior may require the modification of stringent, self-imposed standards of behavior upon which self-approving and self-deprecatory responses are contingent. Similarly, unless the goals specify the behavior that persons will exhibit when successfully self-actualized, internally integrated, self-accepted, personally reconstructed, homeostatically equilibrated, or emotionally matured, such goals provide little
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