John T. Curtis

How Do Interpretations Influence the Process of Psychotherapy

Due to imprecise methods of evaluating therapist behaviors, little progress has been made in demonstrating how the therapist contributes to the success of psychotherapy. More important, the suitability of the therapists behavior to the particular needs of a given patient has not been adequately assessed. In this article, we describe a new approach for assessing the suitability of therapist interventions. We hypothesized that the suitability of interpretations would be more predictive of patient progress than the category of interpretation: transference versus nontransference. The transcripts of three brief psychodynamic psychotherapies were studied. Interpretations in the three therapies were identified and categorized as transference or nontransferen ce and were then rated for suitability. Patient productivity was rated using the Experiencing Scale. As predicted, in each case suitability of interpretations correlated significantly and positively with patient productivity, whereas type of interpretation did not correlate with patient progress.

The Plan Formulation Method

The Plan Formulation Method, a procedure for developing comprehensive clinical case formulations, is illustrated using the case of Ms. Smithfield. The theory out of which the Method developed and the steps involved in developing a Plan Formulation are described. The Plan Formulation Method has been employed with excellent reliability to a wide variety of cases by different researchers. The validity of the Method has been tested in both process and outcome studies. Applications of the Method to the empirical validation and comparison of different theories of psychotherapy are discussed.

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 therapists interventions (behaviors) to a patients 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 therapists 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 therapists interventions were in accord with their particular problems and treatment goals. The application of this method to clinically relevant studies of psychotherapy is discussed.

Conceptualizing Adult Development

On the premise that human development is a lifelong process, and with awareness of certain limitations of the stage model, the authors conceptualize a new model based on developmental process. This model is offered as a basic model for the development of mental functions and structures in both childhood and adulthood.

Testing Hypotheses of Psychotherapeutic Change Processes

How the therapist influences the process and outcome of psychotherapy is a widely debated topic in the psychotherapy research literature. Despite a large body of research (see Parloff, Waskow, and Wolfe 1978; Schaffer 1982 for reviews) surprisingly little progress has been made in understanding how the therapist contributes to the success or failure of psychotherapy. In this paper we will present the argument that the lack of progress is due to (1) inadequate conceptualization of how therapist interventions affect particular patients, and (2) imprecise, overly global methods of evaluating therapist behaviors. In particular, the relevance or suitability of the therapist’s behavior to the particular problems and needs of a given patient has not been adequately assessed.

The Adjective Check List as an outcome measure: Assessment of personality change in psychotherapy

Abstract To investigate the value of the Adjective Check List (ACL) as a psychotherapy outcome measure, the ACL and Symptom Checklist-90-Revised (SCL-90-R) were administered at four times (before therapy, immediately after therapy, and at 6-month and 1-year follow-ups) to 38 patients in brief dynamic psychotherapy. High correlations between selected ACL scales and SCL-90-R Global Severity Index scores (GSI) were found. GSI change from before to after therapy correlated with change on the ACL scales. Changes from before to after therapy were detected for ACL scales at both the mean group and the individual levels. Because the ACL provides valuable information on personality dimensions as well as concurrent levels of distress, it is a particularly promising psychotherapy outcome measure.