Clinically Significant Change: Practical Indicators for Evaluating Psychotherapy Outcome

Developing procedures to evaluate the clinical significance of psychotherapy outcome is imperative. We see social validation as the most promising, viable methodology in this endeavor. Several concerns have been raised, however, about our proposed extensions. In this article, we illuminate and reassert the importance of generating and using multiple normative samples, and the utility of our statistical extensions. We address the limitations of procedural error and skewed sample distributions. Finally we see our commentary as a call for extensive study of the relationship between scores on standard outcome instruments and client's life functioning. We trust our commentary will continue to stimulate healthy dialogue on this crucial topic.