Patterns of Change: Intensive Analysis of Psychotherapy Process

The attempt to make psychotherapy more 'scientific' has many facets, foremost among them the elimination of elements of bias and trial and error that necessarily characterize the psychotherapy process in the absence of hard evidence. It is ironic, then, that research findings to date have had so little impact on the practice. Perhaps, argue editors Laura Rice and Leslie Greenberg, this is so because much of the process research has attempted to identify the mechanisms of change without regard to the context in which change actually occurs.

Central to the research strategy proposed in this volume is an innovative use of the clinical setting as a laboratory. By systematically observing actual in-therapy changes and analyzing the conditions accompanying their occurrence across individuals and therapies, the distinguished contributors to this volume have made important strides toward isolating the key components of change.

Following Rice and Greenberg's discussions in Parts I and II of the new research strategy and the methodological advantages of task analysis for the moment-by-moment study of client performance, the proponents of Gestalt, psychoanalytic, client-centered, and eclectic approaches present step-by-step accounts of their respective research programs. Common to each is the attempt to identify and analyze recurrent client patterns and thereby to isolate the active ingredients of change.