ABSTRACT
Many psychotherapy researchers throughout the world have used that special issue to teach classes on psychotherapy research methods and to expose students to the most exciting developments in the area. The goal of psychotherapy research is to advance one's knowledge about the process, as well as the course and the outcome, of psychotherapy. Researchers try to identify the best treatment options possible for patients with a given problem, disorder, or set of problems or disorders. Ideally, then, one can select optimal treatments for individual patients. Quantitative methods reflect the predominant paradigm used for psychotherapy research since its inception over a hundred years ago. Quantitative methods have become increasingly complex, and hence there are many issues about which the average psychotherapy researcher needs to be aware. As a result, some in the field of psychotherapy research became excited when learning of qualitative methods used by colleagues in education and anthropology.
