EDITORIAL Translating Research into Practice in Psychotherapy

Research into psychotherapy inevitably changes the nature of therapy it investigates; for example, quantification requires acompromise between usual procedures of the clinic and demands of scientific inference. Compromises have to be made. Efficacy and clinical effectiveness have to be distinguished. Clinical trials must conform to a number of criteria to demonstrate reliability and validity. However achieving internal validity requires the use of techniques rarely seen in everyday practice such as studying highly selected homogenous patient populations and extensive monitoring of therapies and progress. This poses a threat to external validity. This often translates into problem of inferring clinical effectiveness from any demonstration of efficacy. This paper summarizes the author's view and experience with psychotherapy research