Psychotherapy process research: Identifying productive in-session processes to enhance treatment outcomes and therapist responsiveness

This paper provides an overview of my research programme for the past 37 years. The focus of my work has been on identifying productive in-session processes to enhance treatment outcomes and therapist responsiveness. Two foci will be reviewed, first, my research on client and therapist interpersonal process and second, productive processing in psychotherapy in three different therapeutic approaches including EFT, CBT and CCT. Given that many competing theoretical perspectives are effective, I was curious about change processes that are common and unique to each. In my work, I employed a variety of research methodologies drawing on frameworks with alternative epistemological and ontological assumptions to capture specific in-session change processes in an attempt to reveal the richness and complexity of the phenomena being studied and illuminate the process of change.

Automated summary

This paper provides an overview of the author's research programme over the past 37 years, focusing on identifying productive in-session processes to enhance treatment outcomes and therapist responsiveness. The research includes investigating client and therapist interpersonal processes, as well as productive processing in psychotherapy using three different therapeutic approaches. The author employed various research methodologies and frameworks to capture specific in-session change processes and explore the richness and complexity of the phenomena being studied.