What makes it easier—and what makes it harder—for therapists to track progress in therapy?
Ongoing monitoring of changes in psychotherapy, known as Routine Outcome Monitoring (ROM), has been gaining increasing attention in both research and practice in recent years. It is an approach that allows therapists to continuously monitor how clients are doing in therapy, how their symptom levels are changing, and how satisfied they are with the therapeutic relationship. Research shows that ROM can improve treatment outcomes, strengthen the therapeutic relationship, and help detect a worsening of the client’s condition in a timely manner. Nevertheless, it is used only rarely in routine practice. This is precisely the focus of a new study from the Centre for Psychotherapy Research, led by Klára Jonášová, which aims to systematically summarize what facilitates the implementation of ROM for therapists and what, conversely, complicates it.