Discrepancies between research and clinical practice of behavior therapy

Abstract

Behavior therapy and modification, with 40 years of history, it is today consolidated as the more relevant and efficient of the psychological treatments. However it becomes evident the emergence of discrepancies among the investigation that sustain their treatment techniques and the practice of the same one on the part of the clinical psychologist. Different discrepancies are analyzed that are come crawling for years (e.g., the role of psychiatric diagnosis; behavioral assessment vs. traditional psychological assessment; single cases vs. complex cases; fixed treatment vs. changing treatment; therapist in the research and in the clinical practice; the designs of N=1; the clinical significance vs. the statistical significance; analogue samples vs. clinical samples; duration of therapy; successes and failures; and follow-ups) as well as the current situation. We analyzed the state of the previous one as well as the little incidence of the research in the clinical practice, the step of the formal training to the clinical practice, the time dedicated to the reading on the part of the clinical and researchers, the primacy of several problems clinically representatives, the effectiveness in the research and in the clinical practice, and its strong and weaks points. We conclude that an important part of the above is related with the step from the theory to the practice and of the practice to the technology and this is usual in all the applied sciences. To know this can help it to solve some of the discrepancies that have been analyzed.