The role of evaluation in clinical practice: overview and group treatment illustration

A variety of intrinsic and extrinsic factors exert pressure on clinicians and researchers to forge a more effective alliance in their mutual efforts to understand treatment process and outcome. The authors provide a general framework and a specific group-therapy model to demonstrate how research measures can facilitate this integration and thereby improve the quality of service delivery. We divide treatment into four phases: negotiation, retention, enhancement, and evaluation, and illustrate how psychotherapists can use research instruments to overcome problems at each stage of intervention.