The impact of the two-configurations model of personality development and psychopathology on psychotherapy research: rejoinder to Beutler and Wolf.

摘要

We are grateful to Larry Beutler and Abraham Wolf for their thoughtful comments that provide us with the opportunity to elaborate our views on important matters in psychotherapy research. Because the two commentaries are very different, we address them separately. Beutler seems to endorse our overall strategy to introduce theoretically anchored personality constructs into psychotherapy research and to look for patient, therapist, and relationship factors, rather than type of treatment, as the principal determinants of outcome, but he raises three major issues: (a) the use of the two-configurations model of personality development, personality organization, and psycho-pathology (e.g., Blatt, 2004, 2006, 2008; Blatt & Shichman, 1983) as the basis for our research efforts; (b) the methods for assessing aspects of this theoretical model; and (c) the continued use of the Treatment of Depression Collaborative Research Program (TDCRP) data set to explore aspects of the psy-chotherapeutic process. Wolf is more concerned with our understandings of how the therapeutic alliance mediates therapeutic change and how we measure this change in the first place. Beginning with Beutler's concerns, we address each of these issues in turn.