Psychotherapy Research 11(1) 49–68, 2001 © 2001 Society for Psychotherapy Research THE EFFECTS OF PROVIDING THERAPISTS WITH FEEDBACK ON PATIENT PROGRESS DURING PSYCHOTHERAPY: ARE OUTCOMES ENHANCED? Michael J. Lambert Jason L. Whipple David W. Smart David A. Vermeersch Stevan Lars Nielsen Eric J. Hawkins Brigham Young University This research was supported by research grants from Brigham Young University (Office of the Aca- demic Vice-President; College of Family, Home, and Social Sciences; and the Office of the Student Life Vice-President) and the German-American Academic Council Foundation. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Michael J. Lambert, Department of Psychology, 272 TLRB, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah 84602. E-mail: michael_lambert@byu.edu. 49 Patient-focused research attempts to provide information that answers the question: Is this treatment benefiting this patient? Although several sys- tems have been developed to monitor and provide feedback about a patient’s response to psychotherapy, few if any have been tested empiri- cally. The current study divided 609 patients into four groups (two ex- perimental and two control) to determine if feedback regarding patient progress, when provided to a therapist, affected patient outcome and number of sessions attended. Results showed that feedback increased the duration of treatment and improved outcome relative to patients in the control condition who were predicted to be treatment failures. Twice as many patients in the feedback group achieved clinically significant or reliable change and one-third as many were classified as deteriorated by the time treatment ended. For those patients who were predicted to have a positive response to treatment, feedback to therapists resulted in a re- duction in the number of treatment sessions without reducing positive outcomes. While both clinical trials and effectiveness studies have provided an abundance of evidence that psychotherapies of various kinds are effective treatments for a variety of psychological disorders (Lambert & Bergin, 1994), clinicians have remained rather skeptical about the relevance and value of psychotherapy process and outcome re- search, looking elsewhere for guidance in directing their clinical practice. At the same time, questions have been raised about the quality of services offered to patients undergoing psychological interventions, especially under the limits placed on ser- vices by managed care organizations. Andrews (1995) has suggested that the push for outcome research is a worldwide phenomenon independent of any specific pay-