Psychotherapy Research and Practice: Friends or Foes?

The controversy surrounding the idea of evidence-based psychotherapy (EBP) is hot. How hot? The American Psychological Association (APA) has published not one but two books on this topic in the past year—the present volume as well as Evidence-Based Practices in Mental Health: Debate and Dialogue on the Fundamental Questions (Norcross, Beutler, & Levant, 2006)—and an APA presidential task force was formed to issue a report (Levant, 2005) defining APA's position on this issue. Can research inform practice? Should research inform practice? If so, what kind of research? The debate is often presented as a science–practice war, but in fact psychotherapy researchers themselves also argue about the sort of data that are useful for practice.