Criticisms of manual-based treatments center on five main themes: they are conceptually at odds with fundamental principles of cognitive-behavioral therapy; they preclude idiographic case formulation; they undermine therapists' clinical artistry; they apply primarily to research samples which differ from the patients practitioners treat; and they promote particular 'schools' of psychological therapy.
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What are manualized treatments?
Manualized treatments specify a theoretical basis, the number and sequencing of treatment sessions, the content and objectives of each session, and the procedures required to achieve the objective of each session.
Is manualized psychotherapy effective?
“Manualized treatment is not empirically supported as more effective than non-manualized treatment. While manual‐based treatment may be attractive as a research tool, it should not be promoted as being superior to non-manualized psychotherapy for clinical practice.”
What are the advantages of using a treatment manual?
In addition to their now required use in controlled outcome studies, treatment manuals offer important advantages for clinical practice. Manual-based treatments are often empirically-validated, more focused, and more disseminable. They are useful in the training and supervision of therapists. Critic …
Do therapy manuals inhibit flexible application?
Scholars and psychotherapists have expressed concerns that manuals inhibit flexible application of approaches, and impedes on one’s ability to tailor therapy to individual needs or adapt interventions to multiple, or “comorbid” presentations of distress.
How does evidence based practice affect the effectiveness of a treatment?
By constraining clinical selections to interventions that at least have some modicum of research support, evidence-based practice increases the chances that clients will receive treatments that work, and decreases the chances that clients will be exposed to interventions that are ineffective or that can cause harm.
What is Klein's essay about?
Klein’s essay is a sobering reminder that even highly intelligent, well-educated individuals can misunderstand the principles of applied science, in this case the rationale underlying evidence-based practice.
What are the advantages of evidence based medicine?
Indeed, one of the major advantages of evidence-based practice is that like all good science, it is in principle self-correcting. As better treatments become available, they will eventually displace less effective ones. Crucially, by sorting the wheat from the chaff, evidence-based practice can also tell us which treatments are extremely unlikely ...
What is evidence based practice?
Specifically, evidence-based practice, like its predecessor of evidence-based medicine, is traditionally conceptualized as a three-legged stool. Specifically, evidence-based practice attempts to integrate (1) the best available research evidence bearing on the efficacy (how well treatments work in rigorous controlled trials) and effectiveness ...
Is evidence based practice a panacea?
No serious scholar believes that evidence-based practice is a panacea. Nevertheless, it is an essential and long-overdue step in the right direction, because it reduces – although of course does not and probably cannot eliminate – errors in clinical inference. By constraining clinical selections to interventions that at least have some modicum ...