Empirically Supported Treatments and Efficacy Trials: What Steps Do We Still Need to Take?

The Task Force on the Promotion and Dissemination of Psychological Procedures sought to identify scientifically supported treatments in order to espouse their use and improve client outcomes in therapy. Nevertheless, the gap between scientists and practitioners persists, and there still remain some limitations to the manner in which this goal is carried out. The criteria specifying whether a treatment qualifies as empirically supported are too lenient. The research used in the search for empirically supported treatments does not take into account the full literature base. Efficacy trials provide practitioners with limited information. This paper proposes means through which the field can improve its search for scientifically supported treatments. Alterations to the criteria that assess empirically supported treatments, greater research transparency and external validity, and collaboration between investigators and clinicians will allow the field of clinical psychology to better answer the question, “How can we most successfully treat this client?”