Toward the development of a clinically useful approach to psychotherapy research

The controversial move toward the development of a consensus on evidence-based or empirically supported therapies may be seen as an international crisis facing psychotherapists. Researchers long have complained that practicing therapists all too often continue to guide what they do therapeutically on the basis of their clinical experience and not the available research findings. Practicing therapists long have complained that therapy research bears only a remote resemblance to what goes on in actual clinical practice and that research reports are written for other researchers, not for clinicians. In the hope of turning our current crisis into an opportunity, this panel involved a dialogue that was designed to bridge this clinical-research gap.