ABSTRACT
The study of the effectiveness of psychotherapy began during World War I. These studies included audio-taping the sessions of therapists in training and rating the tapes to determine if the novice therapists provided the facilitative conditions and/or could be trained to do so. The experience of first receiving relational therapy and then learning how to perform it led to an abiding interest in conflicts within the field between behavioural and relational models. In addition to the general research demonstrating how important relational variables are to general psychotherapy outcome, relational variables have also been found to be of great importance in working with complex trauma survivors. American Psychological Association (APA) passed a formal resolution that psychotherapy was effective in remediating a variety of mental health and psychosocial concerns. Consequently, psychotherapy should be included in the health care system as an established evidence-based practice.
