Research on psychotherapy.

Abstract

w ithin the last two decades, psychotherapy research has begun to emerge from being a cottage industry to become recognized as a viable and credible scientific endeavor. This emergence appears to be a common development in most industrialized countries of the western world, although it has progressed at different rates in each. Collectively, the growth of psychotherapy research has followed a pattern that is characterized by at least three distinct phases. For want of better terms, these phases may be described as the periods of case analysis, descriptive assessment, and controlled experiments. Indeed, research on psychotherapy may now be entering a fourth and still more mature stage of growth characterized by methods that are designed to address complex interactions among treatment, patient, outcome, and process variables. The Phase of Case AnalysisWith the introduction of the "talking cure" by Freud and his followers, research during the first three decades of ttus century was confined largely to intensive descriptions and analyses of individual cases, accompanied by elaborate theoretical formulations to explain the observations. These case analytic methods in psychotherapy were initiated in Europe and paralleled the use of similar methods in the biological sciences during that Work on this chapter was partially supported by National Institute ofAlcoho1 Abuse andillcohohni Grant No. 1 RO1 A08970 awarded to Lany E. Beutler.

O Estado da Arte Psicoterapêutica: Evolução Histórica e Bases Epistemológicas da Psicoterapia

“…A 3ª fase da investigação caracterizou-se pelo interesse nos procedimentos metodológicos que foram alvo de críticas, nomeadamente a implementação de modelos experimentais puros em psicoterapia (Beutler & Machado, 1992). Assim, na tentativa de determinar critérios de investigação da sua eficácia, é formada em 1969 uma organização interdisciplinar, a Society for Psychotherapy Research (SPR), cujo objectivo era regular a investigação através do estabelecimento de critérios reguladores da prática da investigação.…”

“…A mudança no processo de investigação abrange a exploração de diversas linhas de investigação que podem contribuir para compreender o que se passa dentro do processo terapêutico, incidindo sobre as capacidades interpessoais mais relevantes para a relação terapêutica e sobre a forma como os clientes interagem e influenciam a díade, sendo eles próprios informadores privilegiados do processo (Sousa, 2006). Beutler e Machado (1992) assinalam o final do século XX como a transição para o surgimento de uma 4ª fase na história da investigação em psicoterapia, caracterizada pelo desenvolvimento de metodologias destinadas a explorar as complexas interacções do fenómeno terapêutico. Conhecer as díades de trabalho terapêutico afigura-se como uma linha de investigação relevante para compreender a arte psicoterapêutica, a nível nacional e internacional.…”

Continuity and change in the development of psychology around the world.

“…Beutler and his colleagues (Beutler & Crago, 1991; Beutler & Machado, 1992) have reviewed psychotherapy research internationally. In 1992, they concluded that in North America, such research had the defining characteristics of “true experiments,” with random assignment of participants to treatments, use of therapies carefully defined by manuals, and the selection of diagnostically homogenous samples.…”