Assessing the effects of psychotherapy. III. Reliability and validity of 'change after psychotherapy'

Ratings of 'Change after Psychotherapy' (CHAP) in a group of psychologists and a group of psychology students are found to have generally acceptable or high reliability and concordant validity. Factor analyses of the change scales yield basically a common factor, splitting at a higher level into an outer, behavioral, and an inner, intrapsychic change factor, the former indicated by the 'symptoms' and 'adaptive capacity' scales and the latter by the 'self-insight' and 'basic conflict' scales. Factor analyses also support the construct validity of the 'extra-therapeutic conditions' scale. This indicates that summing the change scales will yield a measure of nonspecific change, like global change ratings, whereas the adjusted sum will measure more specifically psychotherapeutic change. A scalogram analysis of the change scales reveals a cumulative pattern that is open to theoretically opposed interpretations about the process relations between inner and outer change.