Quantitative process research in psychotherapy research
Abstract
In this paper the author tries to argue against some frequently disseminated but nevertheless false caricatures of psychotherapy research. Some robust results from process-outcome research are summarized. The postulate that research should not be merely inductive but rather theory-guided is supported, as well as the postulate of overcoming the barriers around individual schools of psychotherapy when developing theoretical concepts further. Emphasizing the great present significance of quantitative process research within the domain of psychotherapy research, it is suggested to be guided in one’s choice of research methods rather by their use in helping to answer the actual questions than by general philosophical attitudes or world view. By a study on therapists’ intuition itis illustrated that quantitative process research can be naturalistic and suited to assess subtle processes. Furthermore, the possibility of combining qualitative and quantitative process research is emphasized and illustrated by a study on resistance in psychotherapy.
Keywords:
Process research, psychotherapy research, quantitative methods, intuition, resistance.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
This journal provides open access to its content in accordance with the basic premise that the free public availability of research benefits the exchange of knowledge throughout the world.
Authors wishing to publish in this journal agree to the following:
- The author/s retain/s the copyrights and consent/s to initial publication of the work in the journal under a Creative Commons Attribution licence, which allows third parties to use the work by citing the name/s of the author/s and this journal as initial publisher (in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 DE-Licence).
- The author/s can enter into additional contracts for the non-exclusive distribution (e.g. publish in a collection or book) of the version published in the journal, if the journal is cited as initial publisher.