Do clinical researchers believe they should be clinically active? A survey in the United States and the United Kingdom.

Do clinical researchers believe they should be clinically active? In an on-line survey among 64 senior researchers from the United States (59%) and the United Kingdom (41%), there was a strong consensus that clinical practice is desirable, especially for psychotherapy researchers, but not absolutely necessary. The researchers were uniformly opposed to the idea that researchers should be required by professional organizations to engage in clinical practice. Four advantages of clinical involvement were identified: (1) it experientially grounds researchers in the complexities of clinical reality; (2) it inspires ideas and helps generate hypotheses; (3) it enables researchers to test the practical applicability of research-based models and interventions and (4) it enhances public credibility and confirms one's identity as a clinical psychologist. However, these benefits were balanced by two salient costs: (1) clinical work is associated with intensive time demands and can therefore potentially interfere with research productivity and (2) exposure to a small number of vivid but unrepresentative clinical cases can cloud one's judgment and interfere with scientific objectivity. The potential of these findings to improve the strained relationship between clinical researchers and practitioners is discussed.