A research agenda for humanistic psychotherapy in the 21st century

Abstract

Efficacy and effectiveness research are described as complementary paradigms by which to study the average response of a group of clients to psychotherapy. Client-focused research, a relatively new approach to studying psychotherapy outcome, is described and advocated as a paradigm that provides both complementary, and unique information in that it focuses on individual client response to psychotherapy. Clinical applications of client-focused research are discussed as a means of providing a framework that could potentially be used by researchers and clinicians to evaluate and enhance the effects of humanistic psychotherapy. Suggestions as to how humanistic psychotherapists can utilize client-focused methodology in routine clinical practice are made.