Bridging the common factors and empirically supported treatment camps: comment on Laska, Gurman, and Wampold

Abstract

We comment on Laska, Gurman, and Wampold's (2014, pp. 467-481) article, "Expanding the Lens of Evidence-Based Practice in Psychotherapy: A Common Factors Perspective." Our reactions to this scholarly review of the 2 foremost approaches to evidence-based psychotherapy (i.e., the common factors [CF] and the empirically supported treatment [EST] perspectives) include substantial agreement on many points, some attempts to reframe the ostensible gap between the perspectives, and our own attempt to conceptually and empirically bridge the perspectives in the form of a model that we call context-responsive psychotherapy integration. We also offer potential future research directions that can help elevate the scientific credibility of the CF model and allow CF and EST researchers to unite in uncovering clinical change mechanisms.