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Personal construct
psychotherapy, effectiveness |
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Although there are increasing
demands for approaches to psychotherapy to have a demonstrable evidence
base, or to be ‘empirically validated’, it has been questioned whether
a traditional empirical approach to evaluating treatment outcome is
compatible with the underlying assumptions of constructivist therapies
(Bohart et al., 1998). Nevertheless, there is now a growing evidence
base for the effectiveness
of personal construct psychotherapy
(Viney,
1998; Watson and Winter, 2000; Winter, 1992, 2003), as well as evidence
of
its distinctiveness from other therapeutic approaches. This encompasses
studies
of various client groups, including adults and adolescents presenting
with
a range of problems in mental health settings, and adults with physical
health
problems. It also includes studies of both individual and group personal construct therapies. The
effect
sizes (an index of degree of improvement) for personal construct
psychotherapy
in this research have generally been found to be at least equivalent to
those in cognitive-behavioural and other therapies. |
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References
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- Bohart,
A.C., O’Hara, M., and Leitner, L.M. (1998). Empirically violated
treatments: disenfranchisement of humanistic and other psychotherapies.
Psychotherapy Research, 8, 141-57.
- Viney,
L.L. (1998). Should we use personal construct therapy? A
paradigm for outcomes evaluation. Psychotherapy, 35, 366-80.
- Watson,
S. and Winter, D. (2000). Towards an evidence base for personal
construct psychotherapy. In J.M. Fisher and N. Cornelius (eds.), Challenging
the Boundaries: PCP Perspectives for the New Millennium.
Farnborough: EPCA Publications.
- Winter,
D.A. (1992). Personal Construct Psychology in Clinical
Practice: Theory, Research and Applications. London: Routledge.
- Winter,
D.A. (2003). The evidence base for personal construct
psychotherapy. In
F. Fransella (ed.), Personal Construct Psychology Handbook.
Chichester: Wiley.
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David A. Winter
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