Psychotherapy and treatment protocols from a constructivist point of view

Abstract

This paper aims to define the role and meaning of treatment protocols for psychotherapy. This objective requires (for) a definition of psychotherapy as a conjoint task where therapist and client are both active agents. The psychotherapist´s task is not to handle the client´s problems but to guide the client´s action towards directions which allows him/her a better problem handling . This task can be accomplished by means of different conceptualizations, maps and schemata for action. But can not be defined under the extreme idea of treatment protocols as fixed patterns of therapist actions, which would be useful for methodological purposes, making possible replication and fitting with the philosophy of the Evidence Based Medicine approach by considering psychotherapy as a technique which works in an analogous way with respect to a drug, but fitting poorly with the behavior of the client as an active agent.