Getting to dissemination

Abstract

The combination of a stage model of psychotherapy and treatment manualization has been a major step forward in treatment development and efficacy testing, but not in dissemination. I argue that the technological model of treatment development makes research on the practical application of these technologies difficult. If we continue on our present course, research on dissemination will be uncommon, expensive, and largely irrelevant to the practical issues that need to be faced. It makes more sense to proceed directly to dissemination research. Alternative methods, including manipulated training designs, will permit this, but these fundamentally challenge the implicit assumptions of the stage model.