There has been considerable debate and little empirical data on the role of psychotherapy treatment manuals in clinical practice. Attitudes toward treatment manuals are a potentially important determinant of how likely practitioners are to use manual-based treatments in clinical practice. A total of 891 practicing psychologists nationwide were surveyed about their attitudes toward treatment manuals and their ideas about the content of manuals. Practitioners held widely varying attitudes toward treatment manuals, and ideas about what constitutes a manual were associated with attitudes in a predictable way. Recommendations are made for how to gather more useful information about practitioners' attitudes toward the many changes affecting current models of clinical practice.
Eighty clients enrolled in a managed care health plan who identified panic disorder as their primary presenting problem were randomly assigned to treatment by a therapist recently trained in a manual-based empirically supported psychotherapy or a therapist conducting treatment as usual (TAU). Participants in both conditions showed significant change from pre- to posttreatment on a number of measures. Those receiving panic control therapy (PCT) showed greater levels of change than those receiving TAU. Among treatment completers, an average of 42.9% of those in PCT and 18.8% in TAU achieved clinically significant change across measures. The results are discussed with reference to the dissemination of PCT and other evidence-based psychotherapies to clinical practice settings.
This report examines how contemporary middle class urban mothers in Beijing, People’s Republic of China (PRC), characterise their own co-parenting conduct in the family. One hundred mothers of 4-year-old preschoolers (95% of whom were only-children) estimated how frequently they engaged in several different activities hypothesised to contribute to co-parenting solidarity. Mothers also reported on their children’s academic competence and behavioural adaptation. Self-reported coparenting activities factored into three major dimensions: behaviours promoting family integrity, co-parental conflict, and frequency of co-parental limit-setting or reprimand activities. Children whose mothers reported more frequent and active efforts to promote family integrity were rated as more academically competent than their peers. Children whose mothers acknowledged more frequent interparental discord and conflict were described both as showing more conduct problems, and as more anxious than their peers. Child conduct problems were also associated with mothers’ reports of more regular reprimand activities by the co-parenting partners. These co-parenting variables accounted for significant proportions of the variance in child behaviour measures over and above the contributions of maternal parenting practices. The implications of these findings for studies of co-parental conflict and solidarity within the PRC, and directions for future co-parenting research with Chinese families, are discussed.
Eighty clients meeting criteria for panic disorder and receiving either panic control therapy (PCT; M. G. Craske, E. Meadows, & D. H. Barlow, 1994) or treatment as usual (TAU) in a managed care setting were assessed 1 and 2 years following acute treatment. PCT was provided by therapists with little or no previous exposure to cognitive-behavioral therapies. Analyses of the full intent-to-treat sample revealed no significant differences between the treatments across the follow-up period. However, when treatment completer status was added as a moderator, those receiving PCT showed lower levels of panic severity and phobic avoidance and a greater likelihood of achieving and maintaining clinically significant change. Benzodiazepine use during follow-up was associated with greater panic severity for those clients who received PCT, but no such relationship was found for TAU clients. Results are discussed in relation to the dissemination and effectiveness of PCT as well as evidence-based psychotherapies more generally.
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