AN APPROACH TO PSYCHOTHERAPY CHANGE PROCESS RESEARCH - INTRODUCTION TO THE SPECIAL SECTION

This special section has a dual focus. One is on psychotherapy change research. The other is to explicate an approach to develop a program o f research that builds on 2 aspects of scientific discovery: decomposi tion of observed phenomena and localization of specific elements that may combine to produce a complex whole. These aspects are considered w ithin an ordered framework of 8 steps in the development and testing o f a model, moving from discovery to model construction, validation, an d prediction of complex outcomes. Studies on psychotherapy change proc esses were selected, after a masked review, to represent different lev els in developing a program of research. Although it is argued that th e early steps of decomposition and localization are important when dev eloping a program of research, current editorial practices in first-ti er journals, including the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psycholo gy, typically consider this type of study to be too preliminary for a scientific archival journal. Should this practice be revisited?