Practice-Oriented Research in Psychotherapy: Building partnerships between clinicians and researchers

The wide gap between science and practice in psychotherapy is due in part to the one-way direction that has mostly defined the connection between researchers and clinicians, with researchers generating empirical knowledge with the hope that practitioners will implement it in their working environment. This traditional approach has not been optimal in addressing the day-to-day concerns of clinicians, or in providing easily generalizable practice guidelines in clinical routine. This book offers an alternative approach to psychotherapy research, based on a partnership between clinicians and researchers in different aspects of the decision, design, implementation, and dissemination of studies conducted in day-to-day practice. More specifically, it describes how to conduct practice-oriented research (POR) by presenting studies and lessons learned (in terms of obstacles faced, strategies used to overcome problems, benefits earned, and general recommendations) by eleven groups of who have been involved in POR in different settings around the world. The book provides tools to help clinicians be active participants in conducting clinically relevant studies, and set the agenda for future research. It seeks to foster collaboration between researchers and practitioners, generating knowledge that can improve our understanding of the process of change and the impact of psychotherapy. This book was originally published as a special issue of Psychotherapy Research.

About the Author

Louis G. Castonguay is Professor of Psychology at Penn State University, State College, PA, USA. His work focuses on the process, outcome, and training of psychotherapy, as well as on the development of practice-research networks. He has co-edited seven books on psychotherapy integration, psychotherapy research and practice, principles of therapeutic change, insight and corrective experience in psychotherapy, and psychopathology. J. Christopher Muran is Associate Dean and Professor in the Derner Institute, Adelphi University, Garden City, NY, USA. He is also the Director of the Psychotherapy Research Program at Mount Sinai Beth Israel, a New York City hospital. His research has concentrated on alliance ruptures and resolution processes, and has resulted in seven book collaborations, including Negotiating the Therapeutic Alliance (2000), Self-Relations in the Psychotherapy Process (2001), Dialogues on Difference (2007), and The Therapeutic Alliance (2010).