The Effectiveness of Collaborative/Therapeutic Assessment for Psychotherapy Consultation: A Pragmatic Replicated Single-Case Study

Abstract

This pragmatic study evaluated the effectiveness of a collaborative assessment intervention as an approach to midtherapy consultation, which has yet to be empirically tested. Ten adult participants in ongoing psychotherapy with a variety of presenting concerns, primarily consisting of general mood and adjustment issues, received a brief assessment-based intervention based on Finn's (2007) Therapeutic Assessment model. Following the collection of assessment questions and the administration of a multimethod assessment battery, clients and therapists participated in a joint feedback session with the assessor. Clients were then followed as their psychotherapy continued. The results of idiographic and aggregate analytic approaches revealed significant reductions in client-reported symptomatic distress, as evidenced by a medium effect size (d = –.50) and a significant change in the trajectory of distress. Client reports of the process of psychotherapy revealed a significant increase in the clients’ ratings of the working alliance. The findings suggest that a midtherapy consultation using collaborative/therapeutic assessment methods is beneficial but that further rigorous investigation is needed.

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank the clients and therapists who generously participated in this study; Mark Van Ryzin and David Morso for assistance with the analytic methods; Filippo Aschieri and Katherine Thomas for their comments on drafts of this article; and members of the Society for Personality Assessment (SPA) who generously contributed to the SPA Foundation to support this research.

Notes

¹ Participant 2 in Table 1.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by a research grant from the Society for Personality Assessment Foundation, awarded to Steven R. Smith. Justin D. Smith received support from the Society for Personality Assessment Foundation as the 2013 John E. Exner Scholar.