ABSTRACT

Analysis of single cases represents an essential strategy for developing our understanding of paradoxical outcome and illusory mental health. Based on findings from both practice-based and randomized controlled outcome studies, 35-40% of clients fail to improve over the course of psychotherapy.We examined the prevalence of failure cases in the Single Case Archive, a database that includes more than 3000 psychotherapy case studies from a variety of ISI-ranked journals. We found that only 4% of these studies describe any form of failure in treatment. Thematic analysis of the titles and abstracts of failure case studies revealed that the majority did not focus on investigating the nature or meaning of failure but were primarily interested in other theoretical and practical matters. We propose a number of explanations for this apparent publication bias in case study research and discuss implications for further research.

摘要

对单个案例的分析代表了我们对矛盾结果和虚幻心理健康的理解的基本策略。根据基于实践和随机对照结果研究的结果，35-40% 的客户未能在心理治疗过程中得到改善。来自各种 ISI 排名期刊的案例研究。我们发现这些研究中只有 4% 描述了任何形式的治疗失败。对失败案例研究的标题和摘要的主题分析表明，大多数人并不关注研究失败的性质或意义，而是主要对其他理论和实践问题感兴趣。