Strategic dilemmas and the socialization of psychotherapy researchers

The design, and especially the sequential organization of psychotherapy research depends not only on the questions asked, but on the standards presented as values to clinician investigators as they get their training. This paper suggests that the socialization of these values has led to a misalignment of preferred design strategies with the questions that must be addressed for progress to be made in psychotherapy research. The author suggests alternative approaches using an ordering strategy from descriptive studies, through associational or correlational designs, before entering into contrast group studies.