Researching psychotherapy effectiveness in mental health service agencies

The results of psychotherapy outcome research to date are briefly reviewed and the reasons why this research has not had greater impact on the practice of psychotherapy in mental health service agencies are presented. Sources of pressure to conduct evaluation research are enumerated. Involving mental health practitioners in field research is proposed as a means of increasing the relevance of psychotherapy outcome research to service personnel. Difficulties frequently encountered in the planning, data gathering, and implementation of results phases of evaluation projects are discussed and recommendations are made for ameliorating these problems. An improvement-oriented feedback model of program evaluation is presented and the value of individualized measurement, repeated-measures designs, and experimental case studies in maximizing the utilization of research results are discussed.