title: Assessing the effects of psychotherapy. I. Analysis and critique of present conventions of estimating change.
abstract: The use of the difference between pre- and posttherapy status as an estimate of change and of the regression transformation as an adjustment for initial status variation is discussed in reliability and scaling terms. Also, the quantitative view of psychotherapeutic change implied by difference scores is set in contrast to a qualitative view of change as inner (re)structuring. Further, it is argued that psychotherapeutic goals should be conceived in terms of metapsychology rather than as the acquisition of desirable surface traits. Finally, the therapeutic and research consequences of testing and interviewing are compared.
authors.affiliation: Stockholm County Council Psychotherapy Institute, Sweden.
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Sandell
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology; D011613:Psychotherapy