Objective: The ability to form a strong therapeutic alliance is considered a foundational skill across psychotherapies. Patient-rated measures of the alliance are now being used to make judgments about a therapist's tendency to build alliances with their patients. However, whether a patient-rated alliance measure provides a useful index of a…

In his commentary on our previously published article "Readability of Self-Report Measures of Depression and Anxiety," J. Schinka (2012) argued for the importance of considering readability of patient materials and highlighted limitations of existing methodologies for this assessment. Schinka's commentary articulately described the weaknesses of…

Objective: To determine whether pro-social treatment change in sexual offenders would predict reductions in recidivism beyond static and dynamic risk factors measured at pretreatment and whether different methods for assessing change based on self-reports and structured clinical rating systems would show convergent validity. Method: We compared 3…

Ceach indicator criterion in separate analyses comparing BED, BN, and combined BED + BN groups relative to controls. Results: PPPs and NPPs suggest all of the indicators have predictive value, with "eating alone because embarrassed" (PPP = 0.80) "and feeling disgusted" (NPP = 0.93) performing as the best inclusion and exclusion criteria,…

Objective: The Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R; Hare, 1991, 2003) is often used to assess risk of violence, perhaps based on the assumption that it captures emotionally detached individuals who are driven to prey upon others. This study is designed to assess the relation between (a) core interpersonal and affective traits of psychopathy and…

Objective: Anxiety disorders are the most prevalent psychiatric disorders in the United States and result in substantial burden to the individual and society. Although effective treatments for anxiety disorders have been developed, there has been substantially less focus on interventions aimed at the amelioration of anxiety-related risk and…

Objective: The purpose of the study was to explore heterogeneity and differential treatment outcome among a sample of patients with binge eating disorder (BED). Method: A latent class analysis was conducted with 205 treatment-seeking, overweight or obese individuals with BED randomized to interpersonal psychotherapy (IPT), behavioral weight loss…

Objectives: This article reports on results from a randomized experimental trial of the effects of the Family Bereavement Program (FBP) on multiple measures of grief experienced by parentally bereaved children and adolescents over a 6-year period. Method: Participants were 244 youths (ages 8-16, mean age = 11.4 years) from 156 families that had…

Objective: The current introductory article provides the rationale for the special section on understudied smokers and innovative treatments. This article proposes a definition of "special populations" of smokers, outlines a priori criteria by which to judge whether an intervention should be adapted for these smokers, and delineates a process by…

Children and adolescents who are overweight are a heterogeneous group. Whether pretreatment characteristics, such as dietary restraint and psychopathology, are related to differential treatment outcomes was not studied before. Using cluster analysis, the authors of this study examined the validity of subtyping along dietary restraint and…

Treatment integrity refers to implementing interventions as intended. Treatment integrity is critically important for experimental validity and for drawing valid inferences regarding the relationship between treatment and outcome. Yet, it is rarely adequately addressed in psychotherapy research. The authors examined barriers to treatment integrity…

Reviews recently published methods of assessment of dynamic formulations derived from psychodynamic case material, particularly those that emphasize central maladaptive interpersonal patterns. The methods are divided into those based on case studies and those with a moderate sample size. Psychometric properties are reviewed. The question of how…

Objective: To support ongoing monitoring of child response during treatment, we sought to develop a brief, easily administered, clinically relevant, and psychometrically sound measure. Method: We first developed child and caregiver forms of a 12-item Brief Problem Checklist (BPC) interview by applying item response theory and factor analysis to…

As the demand for accountability in service provision settings increases, the need for valid methods for assessing clinical outcomes is of particular importance. Self-report measures of functioning are particularly useful in the assessment of psychological functioning, but a vital factor in their validity and transportability is the reading level…

In response to discussions by W. Mischel and by D. D. McClelland, attention is invited to the desirability of explicitly identifying general circumstances under which indirect assessment is superior to direct methods for assessing the same trait. (Author)