CHARACTERISTICS OF EFFECTIVE THERAPISTS - FURTHER ANALYSES OF DATA FROM THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF MENTAL-HEALTH TREATMENT OF DEPRESSION COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH-PROGRAM

Analyses of the data of the National Institute of Mental Health-sponso red Treatment of Depression Collaborative Research Program have primar ily examined the effects of types of treatment and patient characteris tics on outcome, but scant attention has been directed toward evaluati ng the contributions of the therapist. With an aggregate of residualiz ed therapeutic change scores of the 5 primary outcome measures for eac h patient at termination as an overall measure of improvement, an aver age therapeutic effectiveness measure was derived for each of the 28 t herapists based on the outcome of the patients they saw in active trea tment. The distribution of the therapists was divided into thirds, and comparisons indicate that more effective therapists are more psycholo gical minded, eschew biological interventions (i.e., medication and el ectroconvulsive therapy) in their ordinary clinical practice, and expe ct outpatient treatment of depression to take longer than did moderate ly and less. effective therapists.