Methodology of Inquiring “Therapy Failure” in Psychotherapy Research: Practical Guide for Clinical Practitioners and Researchers

Psychotherapy is one of the most important and attractive directions in psychology. Most of the researches are concentrating on the statistical and clinical significance of psychological treatment in comparing a given treatment group with the other groups or placebo ones. It is worth noting that therapy leads always to no positive outcome. Sometimes it makes some clients worse and some of them remain without any change (no change). The therapy failure has been ignored. The focus on statistical and clinical significance which is predominantly evaluated using quantitative pre-post outcome questionnaires remains unclear what this means for clients in their real situations. To do this, it is needed to combine treatment evaluation with quantitative and qualitative outcome measures. This paper aimed to provide a theoretical view and practical steps for inquiring therapy failure: “no changing” and “deteriorating” after receiving therapy. Finding the roots of this failure improvement the theoretical basis in explanation of a psychological disorder and the related psychotherapeutic package. This paper stayed away from theoretical and practical ignorance.