ACHIEVING EVIDENCE-BASED STATUS FOR ADLERIAN THERAPY

 

 

There are numerous therapies and psychological interventions that are busily trying to validate their efficacy, using evidence-based practice.  This is because increasingly the question of value for money and cost effectiveness has found its way into the psychological arena.  And so, disciplines such as psychodynamic therapy, person-centred therapy, transactional analysis and others are looking at ways of making their approach more relevant and attractive to organisations and funding bodies.  In the research paper featured here, Adlerian therapy is also being called into question.

 

Professor James Robert Bitter, East Tennessee State University, has produced a response to Professor Len Sperry’s original paper calling for Adlerian therapy to achieve evidence-based status.  In Sperry’s paper he underlines why EBP is needed for the survival of the model and he goes on to outline how it can be accomplished.  Bitter, in his response, is calling for PBE not to be ignored, as he believes its value is every bit as essential as EBP and may better serve the needs of clients.

 

Below is the abstract from Bitter’s paper, as well as the link to the full response.

 

Abstract

This article is a response to Len Sperry’s paper in which he lays out a compelling case and rationale—as well as the steps in a process—for helping Adlerian therapy to achieve the status of evidence-based practice. The pragmatic importance of Sperry’s proposal cannot be ignored if the model is to survive in a clinical world largely controlled by managed-care systems, insurance, and government regulation. Still, the actual value of evidence-based practice for clients can easily be challenged, and as in other helping professions, a model for practice-based evidence might serve individual clients or single client units (e.g., couples, families, groups) much better.

 

Here is the research paper in full:   Sperry Alderian Therapy Response