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The Great Psychotherapy Debate: Since in April, 2015 I review parts of The Great Psychotherapy Debate (Wampold & Imel, 2015) in the PPRNet Blog. This is the second edition of a landmark, and sometimes controversial, book that surveys the evidence for what makes psychotherapy work. You can view parts of the book in Google Books.

The conduct of psychotherapy trials almost always requires that therapists be adherent and competent in delivering a manualized therapy intervention. Treatment adherence usually refers to the extent to which a therapist used the intervention prescribed by a treatment manual. Therapist competence refers specifically to a therapist’s skill in delivering the therapy. So “competence” in the context of psychotherapy research typically refers only to performing a certain type of treatment. Wampold and Imel argue that these definitions are consistent with a Medical Model of psychotherapy that emphasizes delivering specific active ingredients of a treatment. The Contextual Model of psychotherapy, on the other hand might define a therapist as competent to the extent that the therapist is interpersonally skilled, empathic, and able to engage clients in the actions of the therapy. Wampold and Imel report on a meta analysis of 28 studies conducted by Webb and colleagues (2010) who found a small and non-significant relationship between therapist adherence and patient outcomes (r = .02), and a small and non-significant relationship between therapist competence and patient outcomes (r = .07). Type of treatment (e.g., CBT, IPT, dynamic) did not affect these associations – in other words adherence and competence were not more important to CBT than to other treatments. However, competence seemed to be more important for the treatment of depression (r = .28). Perhaps depression responds better to specific techniques. The finding that competence was generally not related to outcomes was surprising, however generally competence is narrowly defined as how well a therapist delivered the treatment not how well the therapist was able to establish a therapeutic context. Previous researchers concluded that when clients liked working with a therapist, clients got better, and therapists were rated as more competent as a result. A number of studies appear to indicate that therapist competence is really a function of the client’s characteristics not to what the therapist does. For example, clients with more severe personality problems could make a therapist appear less competent, and these clients may have poorer outcomes. If this is the case, it would create a paradoxical situation in which therapists’ appearance of competence (i.e., ability to deliver a manualized intervention well) is largely determined by the client and not by the therapist.

Practice Implications

In contrast to the findings about adherence and competence, the therapeutic alliance is robustly related to patient outcomes. Also in contrast, the size of the alliance-outcome relationship is almost entirely due to the skills of the therapist, not the client’s characteristics. In other words, therapist competence is not a matter of whether they can do a good job of following a manual, but rather therapist competence is likely a matter of creating the right conditions (i.e., interpersonal skill, alliance, empathy, etc.) for delivering evidence-based interventions by which many clients improve. However, some therapists are better at these facilitative interpersonal skills than others.

The Great Psychotherapy Debate: Since in April, 2015 I review parts of The Great Psychotherapy Debate (Wampold & Imel, 2015) in the PPRNet Blog. This is the second edition of a landmark, and sometimes controversial, book that surveys the evidence for what makes psychotherapy work. You can view parts of the book in Google Books.

Wampold, B.E. & Imel, Z.E. (2015). The great psychotherapy debate: The evidence for what makes psychotherapy work (2^nd edition). New York: Routledge.

Some therapists achieve better patient outcomes than others. This seems obvious on the surface and yet few people talk about it, and the research literature seems to downplay or ignore this fact. To illustrate the differing outcomes achieved by therapists, I reviewed a unique study in the September 2013 PPRNet Blog. In that study, 10 cases were randomly selected from 700 therapists (N = 7000 patients), and therapist outcomes were assessed by averaging their patient outcomes. Depending on the presenting problem, as many as 67% of therapists were reliably effective, but as many as 16% were reliably harmful. Clearly therapists differ. Yet psychotherapy research typically treats therapists as if they are uniformly effective. In their chapter, Wampold and Imel review some of the research that estimates the therapist’s effect on outcomes. In other words, what is the impact of the particular therapist on the patient outcomes? Even in studies in which: (a) therapists are selected as experts to provide a specific type of therapy (i.e., CBT, psychodynamic, interpersonal, etc.), (b) therapists are highly trained to be adherent to a manual with repeated supervision, and (c) patients are randomly assigned to treatments, there remains a significant amount of variability in therapist outcomes. Indeed in many studies the therapist effect is as large or larger than the effect of the intervention that is being delivered. In other words, which therapist a patient gets in a treatment study matters just as much or more than what type of therapy they receive. This is also true in medication trials. Better psychiatrists (i.e., those with overall better patient outcomes) who gave a placebo had better patient outcomes than poorer psychiatrists who gave the active medication. A recent large meta analysis found that about 5% of patient outcomes in controlled psychotherapy trials was attributable to the therapist, and the effect is as high as 7% in naturalistic settings. For treatment of PTSD, therapist effects are as high as 12%. On the surface these look like small effects, but in reality they can have a big cumulative impact. Therapists with the best and worst outcomes differ dramatically. For example in one large study, the best performing therapists had a patient response rate of 80% compared to the worst performing therapists who had only 20% of their patients improve. Which therapist would you want a loved one to see?

Practice Implications

Wampold and Imel reported that that therapist effects generally exceed the effects of the specific treatment that is being tested or provided. Some therapists consistently achieve better patient outcomes than others. What are the characteristics and actions of effective therapists? Factors like therapist allegiance to the therapy, empathy, and the ability to form and maintain an alliance with clients appear to differentiate therapists who consistently have good patient outcomes versus those whose patients tend to have poor outcomes.

Angus, L., Watson, J.C., Elliott, R., Schneider, K., & Timulak, L. (2015) Humanistic psychotherapy research 1990–2015: From methodological innovation to evidence-supported treatment outcomes and beyond. Psychotherapy Research, 25, 330-347.

In this wide-ranging review, Angus and colleagues provide an overview of humanistic psychotherapy research from 1990-2015. For this blog I will focus on the efficacy research that they review. Humanistic psychotherapy addresses how people can come to know themselves and each other, and to fulfill their aspirations. This type of therapy emphasizes the personal, interpersonal, and contexts within which clients reflect on their relationships with the self, others, and the world. Carl Rogers is probably the best known early proponent of humanistic client centred psychotherapy. Humanistic psychotherapy focuses on a genuinely empathic therapeutic relationship to promote in-therapy client emotional experiencing, emphasizes meaning-making, and is person-centred. One of the questions raised by Angus and colleagues was: are humanistic psychotherapies efficacious. Here they mainly summarize a previous review by Elliot and colleagues (2013). In a meta analysis of 191 studies and over 14,000 clients, humanistic psychotherapies are associated with large pre to post therapy client change (g = .93) which are maintained over early (< 12 months) and late (> 12 months) follow ups. Further, in 31 studies of over 2,000 clients, those who received humanistic therapies show large gains compared to those who receive no treatment (g = .76). In 100 studies of over 6,000 clients, humanistic therapies had equivalent outcomes to other therapies (g = .01), including CBT (22 studies, g = -.06). Humanistic therapy was most effective for interpersonal/relational trauma, and depression (for which it is considered an evidence supported treatment). There is also good evidence for the efficacy of humanistic therapy for psychotic conditions. However, humanistic therapies may be less effective than CBT for anxiety problems.

Practice Implications

Humanistic psychotherapy that focuses on a genuinely empathic therapeutic relationship that emphasizes client emotional experiencing and meaning-making is efficacious for a number of mental health problems. Rogers argued that non-judgemental acceptance, warmth, and congruence were necessary for good client outcomes, and an accumulating body of research is supporting these early propositions. The evidence for the importance of therapist empathy to improve client outcomes is particularly compelling.

Author email: langus@yorku.ca

Elliott, R., Bohart, A. C., Watson, J. C., & Greenberg, L. S. (2011). Empathy. Psychotherapy, 48(1), 43.

There has been a recent upsurge in interest in empathy in psychotherapy following scientific studies in the field of social neuroscience. This research has focused on activation in areas of the brain associated with emotional stimulation, perspective taking, and emotion regulation. Conceptualizations of the role of empathy in psychotherapy have a rich history in both client-centered and psychodynamic traditions. Carl Rogers defined empathy in part as “...the therapist’s sensitive ability and willingness to understand the client...from the client’s point of view.” Elliott and colleagues indicate three main modes of expressing therapeutic empathy: empathic rapport (compassionate understanding of the client’s experience); communicative attunement (ongoing effort to stay attuned with the client’s experience); and person empathy (experience-near understanding of the client’s world). In this meta-analysis of research on therapeutic empathy, Elliott and colleagues were interested in the strength of the relationship between therapist empathy and client outcome, and factors that might determine this relationship. Their meta analysis included 57 different studies of 3,599 clients. The relationship between therapist empathy and client outcome was medium-sized (r = .31), and in the same order of magnitude as the alliance-outcome relationship. There were no differences between theoretical orientations in the size of the empathy-outcome relationship – in other words, empathy was equally important across types of therapy. Client measures of therapist empathy had the largest relationship to client outcome, whereas therapist ratings of empathy had the smallest association with client outcomes. In other words, if you are interested in therapist empathy, best to ask the client. Also, the empathy-outcome relationship was larger for less experienced (vs more experienced) therapists and for more severely (vs less severely) distressed clients. That is, empathy likely is most important for newer therapists and more distressed clients.

Practice Implications

Therapist empathy is essential to any psychotherapy regardless of orientation. Empathic attunement and expression is particularly important for clients of newer therapists, and for more distressed clients. Elliott and colleagues suggest that the empathic therapist’s primary goal is to understand the client’s experience and to communicate this understanding to the client. This can be done through: empathic affirmations (i.e., validating the client’s perspective); empathic evocations (bringing the client’s experience to life with rich, evocative, and concrete language); and empathic conjectures (making explicit what is implicit in the client’s narrative). Empathy can deepen client’s experiences, but therapeutic empathy also involves individualizing responses to the client. For example, some fragile patients may find typical expressions of empathy as too intrusive, whereas other clients may find therapeutic empathy to be too directive or too foreign. Being attuned to the client’s receptiveness to empathy is an important therapeutic skill. Elliott and colleagues emphasize that empathy should be grounded in authentic caring for the client and as part of a healthy therapeutic relationship.

Del Re, A.C., Fluckiger, C., Horvath, A.O., Symonds, D., & Wampold, B.E. (2012). Therapist effects in the therapeutic alliance-outcome relationship: A restricted-maximum likelihood meta-analysis. Clinical Psychology Review, 32, 642-649.

The therapeutic alliance, defined as the agreement on tasks and goals and the bond between therapist and patient, is one of the most researched concepts in psychotherapy. A meta-analysis of over 200 studies showed that the association between the therapeutic alliance and patient outcomes is moderate but robust (i.e., consistent across studies, patient types, and therapy types). Some have stated that the importance of the therapeutic alliance as reported in studies is an under-estimate of its real impact on patient outcomes. Del Re and colleagues argue that the main reason for this underestimation is that while the therapist’s effect on the alliance-outcome relationship might be large, the client’s effect might be quite small, and so the average of these two effects (which is what most studies report) will be diminished. Del Re and colleagues conducted the first meta analysis to assess the relative size of therapist versus client effects across many studies. Their strategy was clever. They looked at the ratio of the number of patients to therapists (PTR) within a study as a “predictor” of the alliance-outcome relationship across studies. This allowed them to examine the relative contribution of therapists and clients to the alliance-outcome relationship. Two extreme examples illustrate this ratio. (1) In one study, many patients might have been seen by only one therapist, in which case the alliance-outcome correlation could only be attributed to differences between clients since there was only one therapist. (2) In another study, each client might have been seen by a different therapist (i.e., there were as many therapists as clients), in which case the alliance-outcome correlation could only be attributed to differences between the therapists; that is, there are no differences between clients seen by the same therapist as this did not occur. The patient to therapist ratio (PTR) captures the variability between these two extreme examples across studies. Del Re and colleagues included 69 studies that provided enough information about the number of patients and therapists. The overall correlation between alliance and outcome was moderate, r = .27, which was very similar to what was found in a previous large meta-analysis. PTR was significantly associated with the alliance-outcome relationship even after controlling for a number of possible confounding variables. Patients accounted for almost 0% of the alliance-outcome relationship, whereas the effect of therapists was substantially larger, r = .40, accounting for 16% of the alliance-outcome association.

Practice Implications

Therapists’ capacity to develop an alliance with their patients is associated with outcomes. We also know that some therapists demonstrate better patient outcomes than others. So, therapists who consistently are better at forming alliances with patients likely have patients with better treatment outcomes. The quality of the alliance between patients and therapists appears to be the result of what therapists do or bring to the therapy. And so, on average, the therapist’s role in the alliance is most important for achieving good patient outcomes. Del Re and colleagues note that they were not able to look at the interaction between therapist and patient factors. For example, it may be possible that some therapists might form better alliances some types of patients, but not others. Integrating feedback systems so therapists can monitor the therapeutic alliance and patient outcomes may help therapists identify areas in which they need more training or supervision.

Tracey, T.J.G., Wampold, B.E., Lichtenberg, J.W., & Goodyear, R.K. (2014). Expertise in psychotherapy: An elusive goal? American Psychologist, 69, 218-229.

As I have reported many times in this blog, there is substantial evidence for the efficacy of psychotherapy. However, the quality of psychotherapy differs across therapists – that is, some therapists achieve better client outcomes than others. Tracey and colleagues (2014) ask: is it possible to demonstrate expertise in psychotherapy? They define expertise as “increased quality of performance that is gained with additional experience”. Professions that can demonstrate expertise include: astronomers, test pilots, chess masters, mathematicians, and accountants. But several professions may not demonstrate expertise, including: psychiatrists, college admissions officers, court judges, personnel selectors, and psychotherapists. The difference is that the former group has predictable outcomes and has access to quality feedback. In addition, Tracey and colleagues argue that psychotherapy lacks adequate models for how interventions produce benefits. As a result, adherence to treatment protocols (i.e., manuals) is not reliably associated with better patient outcomes. Further, more experienced therapists are not more effective than less experienced therapists. Experienced therapists might have more complete conceptualizations of client problems, but these conceptualizations may not be accurate. Finally, although therapists affect outcomes, client variables (e.g., motivation, severity of symptoms, expectations) likely explain the largest proportion of outcome variance. Tracey and colleagues argue that part of the problem is that psychotherapists do not engage in “deliberate practice”; that is, practice of a specific task (e.g., identifying a rupture in the alliance), receiving specific feedback (e.g., that a rupture was not identified), opportunity for repetition (e.g., to identify a subsequent rupture in the alliance), and opportunity for improvement afforded by error (e.g., better able to identify a future rupture and repairing that rupture). Generally the practice of psychotherapy provides little feedback about the accuracy of past clinical decisions. In other words there is a lack of quality information to help therapists develop into experts. Further, for a whole host of reasons, psychotherapists are notoriously poor at assessing client progress (i.e., like other humans, therapists engage in a number of biased evaluations of their performance). Quality information might be available from progress monitoring (i.e., continuous feedback to therapists about client outcomes), which has been shown to improve client outcomes. However, this may not aid therapists in developing expertise, since progress monitoring provides little information about what therapist behaviors are necessary to improve performance and client outcomes.

Practice Implications

Tracey and colleagues conclude that currently psychotherapy does not provide evidence that it is a profession with expertise. To achieve expertise, therapists need quality information not only about their patients’ outcomes but also about their own average outcomes (i.e. performance) relative to other therapists working with similar clients. And therapists need information on how to manage specific events in psychotherapy. Tracey and colleagues suggest therapists set aside time to generate hypotheses about one’s practice that can be disconfirmed, and then test these hypotheses. For example, if a therapist is experiencing a higher than average number of premature client terminations (which may follow a misunderstanding with the client), the therapist may hypothesize that he or she is not identifying key alliance ruptures. To test this hypothesis, the therapist could repeatedly assess the alliance (with a validated instrument) with some clients, use this information and not clinical judgement alone to identify alliance ruptures (i.e., a week to week severe downward trend in alliance scores), and implement an intervention to repair the alliance with these clients. Do clients with whom a therapist has implemented this procedure drop out at a lower rate? Does this process of deliberately identifying alliance ruptures and repairing them lead to enhanced therapist performance regarding alliance ruptures? This form of deliberate practice (testing disconfirmable hypotheses based on quality information) might lead to greater expertise in identifying alliance ruptures.