Abstract
Time-series methods continue to be an area of rapidly expanding research methodology in the psychotherapy field. Many significant developments in time-series methodology have occurred over the past 10 years. Developments in time-series methodology are worthy of close examination by individuals in the psychotherapy field for a number of reasons. To begin with, time-series research provides an important alternative to traditional large-n between-group designs in psychotherapy research. Frequent concerns have been raised over the efficacy of group designs in answering certain types of questions in therapeutic studies (Barlow, 1981; Bergin & Strupp, 1972; Hersen & Barlow, 1976; Kazdin, 1980; Kiesler, 1971; Kratochwill, 1978; Myers, 1979). Concerns have centered around five main areas: (1) ethical objections (e.g., withholding the treatment from a client who participates in a no-treatment control group), (2) practical problems in collecting large numbers of clients who are homogeneous with respect to some variable (e.g., type of disorder), (3) averaging results over a group so as to obscure individual response to treatment, (4) generality of the findings from a group study to individual clients, and (5) a focus on intersubject variability without adequate focus on intrasubject variability.
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Kratochwill, T.R., Mace, F.C. (1984). Time-Series Research in Psychotherapy. In: Hersen, M., Michelson, L., Bellack, A.S. (eds) Issues in Psychotherapy Research. Applied Clinical Psychology. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-2283-0_6
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