Lecture #16: Empirically supported Treatment

Empirically Supported treatments (ESTs)

Treatments identified by the APA that are found to be successful and effective for 1+ condition

EST Criteria

1. compared with a control group/placebo group of some kind

2. superior/equal to comparison group

3. research must be able to detect moderate effect

4. research must be conducted with

   1. treatment manual

   2. population treated for specific problems

   3. reliable and valid measures

   4. appropriate data analysis

Chambless and Ollendick

• list of interventions

• 60-90% CB in nature

• EST tends to focus of skill building for a specific problem for a brief time

• kids/teen EST tends to be involve family

“RCTs aren’t more effective than other treatments”

• RCT gold standard to detect casual pathways

• RCTs have excellent internal validity, can be supported with bench markers

“EST list is biased against psychodynamic therapies”

• psychodynamic therapies often based on unobservable processes

• long-term difficulties to conduct with RCT

“EST doesn’t generalize to the real world”

• effectiveness shown in research

• common in VA hospitals and clinics

“ESTs are manualized and limit therapist creativity and individualization”

• Clinical creativity still used in individual of manualized treatment

• Ex. formulating hierarchies for exposure therapy

Future directions

• more evaluation of effectiveness of treatments IRL

• investigate efficacy of other treatments

• continue revising criteria for empirically supported treatments

• develop list of potentially harmful treatments