Patient-Focused and Feedback Research in Psychotherapy

In the last 15 years feedback interventions have had a significant impact on the field of psychotherapy research and have demonstrated their potential to enhance treatment outcomes, especially for patients with an increased risk of treatment failure. Current investigations on feedback research are concerned with potential moderators and mediators of these effects, as well as the design and the implementation of feedback into routine care. After summarizing the current state of feedback research, this book provides empirical investigations of contemporary feedback research. These efforts aim at answering three overarching questions: 1) How should we implement feedback systems into routine practice and how do therapist and patient attitudes influence its effects?, 2) How can we design feedback reports and decision support tools?, and 3) Why do patients become at risk of treatment failure and how should therapists intervene with these patients? The studies included in this book reflect the current state of feedback research and provide promising pathways for future endeavours that will enhance our understanding of feedback effects. This book was originally published as a special issue of Psychotherapy Research.

Wolfgang Lutz (Ph.D., Full Professor) is head of the Department of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy and the Director of the Outpatient Clinic and Postgraduate Clinic Training at the University of Trier, Germany. Kim de Jong (Ph.D.) is Assistant Professor at the Institute of Psychology, Unit Clinical Psychology, at Leiden University, the Netherlands. Julian Rubel (Ph.D.) is research fellow at the Department for clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy at the University of Trier, Germany.

Introduction: Patient-focused and feedback research in psychotherapy: Where are we and where do we want to go? 1. A mixed-method investigation of patient monitoring and enhanced feedback in routine practice: Barriers and facilitators 2. Feedback and therapist effects in the context of treatment outcome and treatment length 3. Why do some therapists not deal with outcome monitoring feedback? A feasibility study on the effect of regulatory focus and person-organization fit on attitude and outcome 4. The effect of implementing the Outcome Questionnaire-45.2 feedback system in Norway: A multisite randomized clinical trial in a naturalistic setting 5. Feedback mechanisms of change: How problem alerts reported by youth clients and their caregivers impact clinician-reported session content 6. Predicting outcome of substance abuse treatment in a feedback study: Can recovery curves be improved upon? 7. Daily monitoring of temporal trajectories of suicidal ideation predict self-injury: A novel application of patient progress monitoring 8. Extreme deviations fromexpected recovery curves and their associations with therapeutic alliance, social support, motivation, and life events in psychosomatic in-patient therapy 9. Using the Assessment for Signal Clients as a feedback tool for reducing treatment failure