Maoualizing Flexibility: The Tfaining ol Eclectic Therapists Larry E. Beutier University of California, Santa Barbara Manualized training has become the standard for psychotherapy research and is rapidly becoming adopted in clinical and counseling psychology training programs. However, it is still unclear whether manualization improves outcomes, and there is evidence that manualized training reduces non- specific therapist qualities and attenuates clinical judgment. Prescriptive and Integrative models of psychotherapy are designed to increase thera- pist flexibility. This article describes some current and anticipated efforts to teach therapists to flexibly use therapeutic procedures without losing some of the advantages of manualization. © 1 999 John Wiley & Sons. Inc. J Clin Psychol 55: 3 9 9 - 4 0 4 , 1 999. Contemporary research supports three fundamental and startling conclusions about the training of psychotherapists: 1. Traditional training and supervision has not revealed itself to be very powerful for increasing the effectiveness of psychotherapists (Beutier, Machado, & Neufeldt, 1994; Holloway & Neufeldt, 1995; Stein & Lambert, 1995). 2. Compliance with specific manuals may be related to psychotherapy benefit, regard- less of the specific model of psychotherapy represented by the manuals (Beutier et al., 1994; Dobson & Shaw, 1988). 3. Manualized training may reduce the level of therapist empathy and sensitivity and minimize the importance of therapist judgment (Henry, Strupp, Butler, Schacht, & Binder, 1993). These contradictory conclusions raise serious concerns for the nature of psychotherapy training. Although manualized training has become a standard in psychotherapy research This article.was partially supported by NIDA grant No. ROl DA 09394. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Larry E. Beutier, Ph.D., Counseling/Clinical/ School Psychology Program, Department of Education, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106. JOURNAL OF CUNICAL PSYCHOLOGY, Vol. 55(4), 399-404 (1999) © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. CCC 0021-9762/99/040399-06