Empirically supported treatments: Will this movement in the field of psychology impact the practice of psychosocial oncology?

This article discusses the likelihood of the empirically supported treatmen t (EST) movement impacting the practice of psychosocial oncology, with the goal of raising awareness of these issues and encouraging debate within the psychosocial oncology research and practice community. In 1993, the Americ an Psychological Association struck a task force to develop criteria for em pirically evaluating psychological interventions. The Clinical Psychology ( Division 12) Task Force now evaluates psychological interventions and publi shes an updated list of ESTs on a yearly basis. Concerns raised about the E ST movement in psychology have included difficulties with the terminology a nd process of the Task Force, problems with the methodology used in psychot herapy research, and with the possible practical implications of the Task F orce list of EST. A review of the literature suggests that psychosocial int erventions in oncology are currently beginning to be evaluated by the EST c riteria and that the reviewed interventions have yet to attain EST status. Following from this review, it is argued that researchers and practitioners in psychosocial oncology should become aware of the standards established by the Division 12 Task Force and that future psyche-oncology intervention research may need to be designed to meet those standards. The discipline of psychosocial oncology is encouraged to consider the possible implications of accepting or not accepting the EST criteria. Copyright (C) 2001 John Wil ey & Sons, Ltd.