Background Many outcome measures for young people exist, but the choices for services are limited when seeking measures that (a) are free to use in both paper and electronic format, and (b) have evidence of good psychometric properties. Method Data on the Young Person's Clinical Outcomes in Routine Evaluation (YP‐CORE), completed by young people aged 11–16, are reported for a clinical sample (N = 1269) drawn from seven services and a nonclinical sample (N = 380). Analyses report item omission, reliability, referential distributions and sensitivity to change. Results The YP‐CORE had a very low rate of missing items, with 95.6% of forms at preintervention fully completed. The overall alpha was .80, with the values for all four subsamples (11–13 and 14–16 by gender) exceeding .70. There were significant differences in mean YP‐CORE scores by gender and age band, as well as distinct reliable change indices and clinically significant change cut‐off points. Conclusions These findings suggest that the YP‐CORE satisfies standard psychometric requirements for use as a routine outcome measure for young people. Its status as a free to use measure and the availability of an increasing number of translations makes the YP‐CORE a candidate outcome measure to be considered for routine services.

Aims: This study aimed to assess the reliability of the Person Centred and Experiential Psychotherapy Scale (PCEPS), a new adherence/competence measure of person-centred and experiential psychotherapies. The PCEPS consists of 15 items with two subscales: Person Centred Process, and Experiential Process. Method: One-hundred twenty audio-recorded segments of therapy sessions were rated independently by two teams of three raters using the PCEPS. Half of the segments were 10 min long and the other half were 15 min long. Six therapists were experienced therapists and four were counsellors in training. Seven of the therapists identified their work as 'person-centred', and three identifed their work as 'process-experiential'. Three raters were qualified and experienced personcentred therapists and three raters were person-centred counselling trainees in their first year of training. Results: Interrater reliabilities were good (alpha: .68 -.86), especially when ratings were averaged across items (alpha: .87); interitem reliabilities were quite high (alpha: .98). Exploratory factor analyses revealed a 12-item facilitative relationship factor that cuts across Person-centred and Experiential subscales (alpha: .98), and a nonfacilitative directiveness factor (3 items, alpha: .89). Conclusions/Implications: The PCEPS has potential for use in RCT research as well as in counselling training and supervision, but will require further testing and validation. The assessment of treatment integrity is an essential component of psychotherapy trials (Waltz, Addis, Coerner, & Jacobson, 1993). Tests of treatment integrity have typically included assessment of both adherence and competence, that is, whether therapists accurately followed the therapy manual and also whether they did so in a competent manner. More specifically, Waltz et al. (1993) applied the term adherence to refer to the extent to which a therapist used interventions prescribed by the treatment manual and avoided the use of interventions proscribed by the manual, proposing the term competence for the level of ability shown by the therapist in performing the therapy. According to these definitions, "competence presupposes adherence, but adherence does not necessarily imply competence" (p. 620). Waltz et al. (1993) also recommended that treatment integrity checks be undertaken through analysis of audio or video recordings of the therapy sessions by independent researchers/practitioners.In the field of person-centred therapy, the first measures used to assess the competence of person-centred therapists were the Truax Scales for Therapist Accurate Empathy, Nonpossessive Warmth, and Genuineness (Truax & Carkhuff, 1967). These scales were designed for the analysis of either live observations or taped recordings of therapy sessions. The Accurate Empathy (AE) scale is a nine-point annotated and anchored rating scale, while the Non-possessive Warmth (NW) and Genuineness (G) scales are both five-point annotated and anchored rating scales. The range of inter-rater reliabi...

is a Brazilian psychologist with an MA in clinical psychology. She is currently completing a PhD in developmental psychology at Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (Porto Alegre, Brazil) and developing part of her doctoral studies at University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, United Kingdom. She is a person-centered therapist and the coordinator of the person-centered training program of Delphos Institute in Brazil. She is the author of a book in Portuguese with Newton Tambara about the theory and practice of client-centered therapy and has published articles and book chapters in English. SummaryThis article discusses the epistemological underpinnings of the use of the randomized controlled clinical trial (RCT) in psychotherapy research. It is argued that underlying the therapy-choice dispute overtly targeted by the RCT is an epistemologically controversial (and covert) theory-choice dispute. Furthermore, the RCT is not a theory-neutral evaluative method but rather a research method shaped by assumptions that originate in behaviorist theories of therapy. Because there is no neutral language or basic vocabulary shared by the competing theories that would enable the comparison of their observation reports and because behaviorist and nonbehaviorist therapies are grounded in incommensurable theories, an RCT cannot be used to compare them. Therefore, RCT cannot be held up as the definitive method for investigating psychotherapy. The current perspective of sociology of science is provided to explain the AUTHOR'S NOTE: The author wants to express her gratitude to Bert Rice, Jane Balmforth, and Jane Edwards for their helpful revisions.

BackgroundPersistent depressive symptoms below the threshold criteria for major depression represent a chronic condition with high risk of progression to a diagnosis of major depression. The evidence base for psychological treatments such as Person-Centred Counselling and Low-Intensity Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for sub-threshold depressive symptoms and mild depression is limited, particularly for longer-term outcomes.MethodsThis study aimed to test the feasibility of delivering a randomised controlled trial into the clinical and cost effectiveness of Low-Intensity Cognitive Behavioural Therapy versus Person-Centred Counselling for patients with persistent sub-threshold depressive symptoms and mild depression. The primary outcome measures for this pilot/feasibility trial were recruitment, adherence and retention rates at six months from baseline. An important secondary outcome measure was recovery from, or prevention of, depression at six months assessed via a structured clinical interview by an independent assessor blind to the participant’s treatment condition. Thirty-six patients were recruited in five general practices and were randomised to either eight weekly sessions of person-centred counselling each lasting up to an hour, or up to eight weeks of cognitive-behavioural self-help resources with guided telephone support sessions lasting 20–30 minutes each.ResultsRecruitment rate in relation to the number of patients approached at the general practices was 1.8 %. Patients attended an average of 5.5 sessions in both interventions. Retention rate for the 6-month follow-up assessments was 72.2 %. Of participants assessed at six months, 71.4 % of participants with a diagnosis of mild depression at baseline had recovered, while 66.7 % with a diagnosis of persistent subthreshold depression at baseline had not developed major depression. There were no significant differences between treatment groups for both recovery and prevention of depression at six months or on any of the outcome measures.ConclusionsIt is feasible to recruit participants and successfully deliver both interventions in a primary care setting to patients with subthreshold and mild depression; however recruiting requires significant input at the general practices. The evidence from this study suggests that short-term Person-Centred Counselling and Low-Intensity Cognitive Behaviour Therapy are potentially effective and their effectiveness should be evaluated in a larger randomised controlled study which includes a health economic evaluation.Trial registrationCurrent Controlled Trials ISRCTN60972025.

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