The outcome problem in psychotherapy revisited. 1963

This reprinted article originally appeared in Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, & Practice, 1963, 1 (1), 1-13. (The following abstract of the original article appeared in record 1965-15636-001) "… the therapeutic situation itself should be used to a much greater extent than has heretofore been the case to generate and develop criteria of outcome… . no-where else do we have an opportunity to make as penetrating, intensive, systematic, and undistorted observations as in the therapeutic situation… . transference is the most faithful replica of the patients' capacity for intimate interpersonal relatedness." Researchers should systematize and objectify intratherapeutic observations and where possible relate them to the patients' interpersonal performances outside therapy. There is a class association between quality of patients' relationship to the therapist and the quality of his relationship with others, including his adaptation to reality. Difficulties encountered in using the therapeutic situation as a criterion-generating situation are "(1) the problem of conceptualizing, specifying, and quantifying the multidimensional observations made in therapy; (2) the therapists reliability as on O (by which is meant more than countertransference); and (3) limitations inherent in the 2-person setting, which provide representative, but incomplete, data about the patients' interactions with others".