Positive outcomes can be expected for most clients who enter psychotherapy, and clinicians
are appropriately optimistic about the effects of their services. Despite clinician con-
fidence in their ability to help clients, many clients do not benefit and a small portion even
deteriorate before they leave treatment. It appears that clinicians are unwilling or unable to
identify these clients, despite knowing the baseline rates for failure. Whereas other health
care professionals rely heavily on lab test results for diagnosis and monitoring of treatment
response, psychotherapists continue to practice without reliance on them. Formally tracking
treatment response with the use of standardized measures and markers for likely negative
response increases the likelihood that clinicians can take timely steps to reduce treatment
failure.We now have the ability to use effective lab tests to aid clinical practice. The nagging
question is whether clinicians will use them in routine practice. We have developed
elegant methods for accurately predicting client treatment response, and failure to respond
in particular. The degree to which such information, when made accessible to practitioners,
improves client outcome is a topic highlighted in other articles in this issue.
Rest of this article can be found at link below:
Tags: client outcome, health care professionals, treatment failure
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