How the psychotherapy research community must work toward measurement validity and why

The clinical and the scientific value of the whole psychotherapy research enterprise depends upon the construct validity of its Mental Health Status (MHS) measurements. This is essentially a matter of conceptual validity, that is, what we agree that MHS reasonably means. Any theory of psychotherapy...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of clinical psychology 2005-03, Vol.61 (3), p.269-283
Main Author: Krause, Merton S.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Attitude of Health Personnel
Biological and medical sciences
Consensus
Cooperative Behavior
Humans
Measurement techniques
Medical sciences
Mental Disorders - therapy
Methodology. Experimentation
Predictive Value of Tests
Psychological Tests - standards
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychopathology. Psychiatry
Psychotherapy
Psychotherapy - methods
Psychotherapy - standards
Reproducibility of Results
Research - standards
Techniques and methods
Treatment Outcome
Validity
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The clinical and the scientific value of the whole psychotherapy research enterprise depends upon the construct validity of its Mental Health Status (MHS) measurements. This is essentially a matter of conceptual validity, that is, what we agree that MHS reasonably means. Any theory of psychotherapy can be true only insofar as it involves independent variables that have demonstrated causal relevance to such conceptually valid measurements of MHS, which is also what makes the measurements of these independent variables predictively valid. Every published efficacy, effectiveness, and case study that tests or explores for explanations of MHS ought to involve the same conceptually valid MHS measures, but the necessary validity is still undemonstrated. It cannot be demonstrated unless the research community reaches a conceptual consensus on MHS, a consensus that decisive psychotherapy research must await. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Clin Psychol.
ISSN:0021-9762
1097-4679
DOI:10.1002/jclp.20020