Utilization of Outcome Measures and the Session Rating Scale in a University Training Clinic

Psychotherapy research continues to evolve in order to meet the needs of potential clients and patients, particularly in the area of Empirically-Supported Treatments (EST). . Moreover, recent research has indicated that affording clients with the opportunity to share their perspective of therapy and progress being made leads to more positive outcomes. The goal of this study is to determine (1) if the use of ESTs in a university training clinic yields positive outcomes in therapy, (2) if specific ESTs provide more positive results than other ESTs when used by students in training, and (3) investigate the effectiveness of using the Session Rating Scale (SRS) as a form of immediacy and tracking with clients to improve therapeutic outcome in the same setting as measured by pre and post test scores on the Symptom Checklist 90-Revised (SCL-90-R). The study utilized archival data retrieved from a university training clinic. Participants were deidentified data from past clients who had signed their consent for information to be used in future research studies. Data collected included demographic information, diagnoses, treatment modality (EST) utilized in therapy, pre-therapy scores on the SCL-90-R, post-therapy scores on the SCL-90-R, and scores on the SRS