From the theoretical perspective of expert clinicians representing PDT and CBT, a focus on RF appears to be a common process factor in the way both treatment models are conceptualized. The CPQ can also be a useful instrument in teaching psychotherapy process from different theoretical perspectives and training future clinicians in their application. Future researchers can use these prototypes to explore process in actual sessions.

In the sciences, new conjectures and theories generally do lead to innovations of method, since new means are necessary to "see" or investigate hitherto unknown entities or structures. Galison and Stump (1996), as cited by Rustin (2001, p. 81) Research into psychotherapy necessarily and inevitably changes the nature of the therapy it investigates.Fonagy (2005), as cited by Pruetzel-Thomas (2006, p. 8) Clinicians engaged in thinking about the nature of the therapeutic process in work with children frequently state concern that traditional research measures fail to do justice to the complex interactions that take place between therapist and child. The Child Psychotherapy Q-Set (CPQ; Schneider and Jones, 2004) is an instrument designed to describe psychotherapy process with children ages 3-13 in clinically meaningful ways and in a form suitable for quantitative comparison and analysis. The CPQ offers a common language to describe process and therapeutic action that could allow a mutual engagement with questions of therapeutic process and its relation to outcome for clinicians and researchers. Here we briefly describe this method and its application to study therapy process and outcome with an 11-year-old girl in psychodynamic psychotherapy.

Objective: This article reports the validation of the Adolescent Psychotherapy Q-set (APQ), a newly developed instrument, adapted from the well-established Psychotherapy Q-Set (PQS) and the Child Psychotherapy Q-set (CPQ). The APQ aims to describe the psychotherapy process in the treatment of adolescents in a form suitable for quantitative comparison and analysis. Method: The validation was conducted with the ratings of seventy audio-recorded youth psychotherapy sessions from a range of therapists, patients, and treatment stages, using two therapeutic approaches (Short-Term Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy). Data analysis included intraclass correlation coefficients, Q-factor analysis, non-parametric mean differences, and Pearson correlations. Results: Results suggest that the APQ has good levels of interrater reliability, is able to identify differences and similarities of two therapeutic approaches, and good convergent and discriminant validity with a widely-used measure of therapist behaviours (the Comparative Psychotherapy Process Scale). Conclusions: The APQ reported good levels of validity and reliability. It is hoped that it will contribute to new ways of investigating the mechanisms of therapeutic change for those working with adolescents.

No abstract