THEN AND NOW - 40 YEARS IN PSYCHOTHERAPY-RESEARCH

A considerable amount of psychotherapy research has been conducted over the past four decades. From the perspective of an active investigator throughout that period, the writer reflects on what he considers to be the outstanding changes in the field over that time as well as the critical issues that still remain unresolved. Changes are discussed in terms of the influence of theory and advances in design and methodology; the productivity and competence of researchers; and sources of funding support and their centralization. Issues of signal importance that are still unsettled include the definition of psychotherapy methods, the meaningfulness of psychotherapeutic change, the theoretical foundation of therapy, the facts of psychotherapy process, and the quest for the ideal design and the crucial experiment.