Evaluation of Psychotherapy: Subjective Viewpoints of Outcome

Abstract

Factors involved in the outcome of psychotherapy were studied by asking 5 individual therapists to judge their own effectiveness under various therapeutic conditions. Of 9 variables, only 2 were statistically related to positive outcome based on therapists' subjective opinion: the number of interviews, and approaches in which individual psychotherapy was combined with other approaches such as chemotherapy and family therapy. Although subjective, the data suggest that therapists see more improvement in clients seen in six or more interviews than those seen in five or less.

The effect of client choice of therapist on therapy outcome

“…A more recent study comparing 4A "unimproved" clients matched with 44 clients rated as "improved" following therapy (Schneller, Schneller, & Saccuzzo, 1977) found only two variables that significantly differentiated the two groups: number of interviews and the type of therapy received. Therapists rated patients as improved when they received six or more sessions of therapy (p < .005) , and when they received individual plus other types of therapy (p^<.001).…”

Evaluating therapy outcome at a community mental health center.

“…Number of sessions. In general, some evidence supports using number of sessions as an indicator of therapeutic outcome (Frank, Salzman, & Fergus, 1977;Johansson et al, 1980;Meltzoff & Kornreich, 1970;Schneller, Schneller, & Saccuzzo, 1977). A review of 33 studies addressing the question of length of treatment (Orlinsky & Howard, 1978) determined that "a substantial majority of these studies found some significant positive association between amount of treatment and therapeutic benefit.…”