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RESEARCH ON CONSULTING — WITH, FOR OR AGAINST PRACTICE?
The question as to why psychotherapists participate in psychotherapy
research or not has been researched in some studies. The results show that there
is low motivation to actively participate in psychotherapy research. Bednar &
Shapiro” asked 16,100 psychotherapists whether they were willing to have two
of their cases audio-recorded for scientific purposes. Only 85 psychotherapists
agreed, in other words less than 1%. The authors summarised that there are
good reasons to believe that the attitude towards psychotherapy research shown
by most of the clinical practitioners is not merely indifference (as is usually
assumed) but uncooperativeness and ultimately antagonism**. In a study by
Wynne and colleagues*’, 98% of the 845 contacted psychotherapists declined
to take part. The study design required the audio-recording of a therapy ses¬
sion. Vaughan and colleagues* reported that they had to cancel their clinical
study with patients because they were unable to recruit a sufficient number of
participants. Most of the patients refused to participate in a study after the
psychotherapists introduced them to the study. The authors interpreted this
effect as an indirect result of psychotherapists’ dismissive attitude towards
psychotherapy research.
The question as to the specific reasons why participation in (psychotherapy)
research is accepted or declined is however still relatively under-researched.
Two studies examined the motives for non-participation by psychotherapists*.
Reasons for non-participation were mainly the lack of time and general
criticism towards the study design or the research instruments to be used (e.g.
audio recordings). Vachon and colleagues? also asked which aspects could
potentially increase the willingness to participate in psychotherapy research.
As supporting possibilities, external factors such as more time, financial
compensation or research designs which did not feature audio recordings were
(ed.), Empirische Forschung in der Psychoanalyse: Grundlagen — Anwendungen — Ergebnisse,
Gießen, Psychosozial-Verlag, 2005, 63-76.
32 R.L. Bednar - J. G. Shapiro, Professional Research Commitment: A Symptom or a Syndrome,
Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 34(3) (1970) 323-326.
#3 Ibid.
% M. Wynne - M. Susman - S. Ries - J. Birringer,— L. Katz, A method for assessing therapists’
recall of insession events, J counsel Psychol, 41(1) (1994) 53-57.
35 §.C. Vaughan — R. D. Marshall — R. A. Mackinnon — R. Vaughan — L. Mellman — S. P. Roose,
Can we do psychoanalytic outcome research? A feasibility study, Int J Psychoanal, 81(3) (2000)
513-527.
36 Bednar — Shapiro, Professional Research Commitment; D. O. Vachon — M. Susman - M.
E. Wynne — J. Birringer — L. Olshefsky — K. Cox, Reasons therapists give for refusing to
participate in psychotherapy process research, Journal of Counseling Psychology, 42(3) (1995)
380-382.
57 Vachon et al., Reasons therapists give for refusing.
53 ¢