Measuring the therapist's impact on the patient's therapeutic progress

This article describes methods and concepts developed by the Mount Zion Psychotherapy Research Group for empirically evaluating the pertinence of suitability of a therapist's interventions (behaviors) to a patient's particular problems, needs, and treatment goals. Intensive studies of 2 brief psychotherapy cases are presented. In these studies, patient-initiated critical incidents (tests) were identified, the case-specific accuracy of the therapist's responses to these incidents was rated, and the impact of these interventions on subsequent patient behavior was measured. The findings indicated that these patients tended to show improvement in the therapeutic process when the therapist's interventions were in accord with their particular problems and treatment goals. The application of this method to clinically relevant studies of psychotherapy is discussed.