Designing a Control for a Behavioral Group Therapy☆ (original) (raw)
To evaluate whether the specific techniques of a newly developed behavioral therapy exceed the effects of its common factors (e.g. therapeutic alliance), an ideal comparison control must omit the unique ingredients of the active treatment while possessing the common factors in equal measure. Reviews of the controlled-trial psychotherapy research literature show that such systematic matching is not a common practice. Addressing this gap between theory and practice, we delineate seven steps for designing a credible control for a recently developed behavioral therapy adapted for Binge Eating Disorder-Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT). Our detailed description of matching the common factors to the extent possible and specifically measuring these offers a useful research design template for investigators of controlled behavioral treatment trials. Designing a Control for a Behavioral Group Therapy The specific therapeutic effect of a group psychotherapy treatment is most rigorously evaluated when the treatment under investigation is as closely matched as possible to a randomly assigned comparison treatment group (see for example Horvath, 1988; Lohr, DeMaoi, & McGlynn, 2003; Stevens, Hynan, & Allen, 2000). To control for the effects of the common factors (e.g. therapeutic alliance, therapeutic rationale, etc.) on outcome, a comparison group must possess these general therapeutic factors while omitting the unique active ingredients of the treatment under investigation (Horvath, 1988; Stevens et al., 2000). As Stevens et al. (2000) assert: "The task of demonstrating that specific techniques in complete treatments exceed common factors requires outcome studies that compare complete treatments with common factor controls." Much planning and effort is required for this task. Reviews of the controlled-trial psychotherapy research literature show that systematic matching is not a customary practice
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