Braking the bandwagon: scrutinizing the science and politics of empirically supported therapies.

Proponents of empirically supported therapies (ESTs) argue that because manualized ESTs have demonstrated efficacy in treating a range of psychological disorders, they should be the treatments of choice. In this article, the author uses a hypothetical treatment for obesity to highlight numerous flaws in EST logic and argues for common factors as a more clinically relevant but empirically challenging approach. The author then explores how political variables may be contributing to the expansion of EST and the resulting restriction of practitioner autonomy. Last, the author argues that EST is best viewed as 1 component of a more comprehensive evidence-based practice framework. The author concludes with some cautionary statements about the perils of equating the EST paradigm with the scientist-practitioner ideal.