[What is therapeutic in psychotherapy? An empirical evaluation of assumptions of the "Generic model of psychotherapy"].

What is effectively therapeutic about psychotherapy? The generic of psychotherapy provides an empirically valid conceptual representation of psychotherapy process and outcome relationships that begins to answer this question. The aim of this study is an empirical investigation of patterns of process and outcome relationships. The data come from 18 single therapies (9 very successful and 9 less successful therapies) of the Bernese Comparative Treatment Study (Grawe, Caspar & Ambühl, 1990). First the variables of the generic model of psychotherapy are operationalized by different process and outcome measures. The statistical method of stepwise multiple hierarchical regression serves to prove a number of assumed relationships of the generic model. The findings reported here demonstrate the utility of the generic model for guiding exploratory psychotherapy research that aims to identify emerging patterns of relationships between process and outcome.