Sudden Gains in Treatment

This entry reviews the phenomenon of sudden gains—sudden and large improvements in symptoms experienced by patients between two consecutive therapy sessions. Sudden gains during treatment are associated with more favorable treatment outcomes, both in the short run and in the long term. Furthermore, investigations that focus on sudden gains can contribute to an understanding of the mechanisms of change of a specific psychotherapy.

Course of Change During Psychotherapy

In most investigations of the course of change during psychotherapy, there is an implicit assumption that improvement is gradual and steady. Under this assumption, the magnitude of any symptom changes between sessions can be estimated by dividing the total change observed by the number of sessions. A variation on this view is that symptoms tend to decline rapidly ...

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