The gap between science and practice: A conversation.

Abstract

The authors, friends, colleagues, and collaborators for almost 60 years engage in an informal discussion concerning the gap between science and practice. They identify some sources of the problem, some manifestations of it, and point the way to some possible solutions. The articles in this special section, because of their use of data collected in a naturalistic setting and the prominent role of clinicians, are viewed as one of many promising directions for the reconciliation of the activity of researchers and the needs of clinicians. Clinical Impact StatementThere is a longstanding gap between science and practice in clinical psychology. Question: What are the reasons for this gap, and what can be done to reduce it? Findings: The authors discussed these questions, pointed to the disconnect between clinicians and researchers in training and in reward systems, and suggested how greater contact between them could lead to more meaningful research being performed and used. Meaning: The increase in contact and greater breadth in methodology could produce more transportable results. Next Steps: Development of these connections and adoption of new methodologies should be undertaken.

Personalized models of psychopathology as contextualized dynamic processes: An example from individuals with borderline personality disorder.

“…Thus, we are not arguing for the abandonment of nomothetic research—but we do recommend a rebalancing that focuses on the individual as the unit of analysis in addition to traditional nomothetic research (Roche, Pincus, Rebar, Conroy, & Ram, 2014; Wright, Beltz, Gates, Molenaar, & Simms, 2015). Nevertheless, using the person as the unit of analysis for psychopathology research may facilitate rapprochement in the persistent research practice divide (Stricker & Goldfried, 2019). This is because personalized models of psychopathology approximate the clinician’s understanding of patients as distinct individuals rather than as the “average” patient from a nomothetic sample (Fisher, 2015).…”

Applicant factors contributing to interview selection, ranking determination, and judgement of “Fit” among health service psychology internship training programs

“…One potential implication of our findings is that the low value on research as an evaluative criterion for applicants within certain settings (most especially UCCs and Community-Based settings) may indicate research is viewed as not very meaningful to the clinical work conducted there, potentially reflecting a research-practice divide (Stricker & Goldfried, 2019).…”

The Synergistic but Troubled Relationship Between Psychotherapy Science and Practice: Moving Forward

“…How can the field facilitate researchers using practice to develop their studies? Before addressing these questions, we note that research-practice integration is substantially greater currently than it was a few decades ago, when this problem was first considered (see Striker and Goldfried, 2019); much has been done to improve integration (e.g., Bartholomew et al, 2017;Paquin, 2017). Still, the disconnect between empirical science and practice continues to be problematic, and, as noted, is indicative of inherent conflicts between the demands and needs of each.…”