Linda Stephenson’s research while affiliated with University of Chichester and other places

Counselling and psychotherapy are rooted in humanistic and phenomenological approaches that place emphasis on a choice of therapies being available to individuals. Practice-based evidence makes an important contribution to the field of evidence-based practice on which National Health Service (NHS) clinicians and patients base decisions about psychological treatment interventions that are most likely to be effective. This research aimed to explore the effectiveness of Existential–Phenomenological Therapy (EPT) as routinely used to treat NHS patients in a U.K. secondary care setting. Quantitative data were analyzed from all available NHS routine patients’ (N = 143) Clinical Outcomes in Routine Evaluation Outcome Measures for all those who were treated with EPT (n = 34) and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (n = 109) from January 2008 to September 2010. Differences were found between waiting list and posttherapy (p = .016) and between pretherapy and posttherapy (p = .03) for EPT research participants and mean results produced reliable and clinically significant change for some. A quarter of these participants moved from a clinical to nonclinical population from pretherapy to posttherapy. A similar pattern was found for the EPT and cognitive behavioral therapy NHS routine practice patients.