The Personal Questionnaire as a Method of Assessing Change during Psychotherapy

¹ Physician, The Bethlem Royal Hospital and the Maudsley Hospital, London, S.E.5
² Research Psychologist, The Bethlem Royal Hospital and the Maudsley Hospital, London, S.E.5

An account is given of a preliminary study of assessment of patient change in a psychotherapy community unit by means of a self-report measure, the Personal Questionnaire, constructed individually for each patient. It was found that:

(i) the `immediate improvement effect' which occurs with other types of treatment session was not detected following individual psychotherapeutic sessions.

(ii) there was no evidence of a trend towards improvement over the twelve-week period which was intensively studied, although there was some suggestion that positive changes occurred in succeeding months.

(iii) there was more widespread change in the patient's subjective state `for better or for worse' during interviews than during comparison periods, although there were no overall divergent trends during a 12-week period which would have suggested that some patients were harmed and some helped.

These findings are discussed with reference to further intensive research into the psychotherapeutic process.