I’ve responded below to Rebecca’s Q’s.
Are we comparing those treated with psychodrama with those treated with nothing, or with other modalities?
Both can be done.
How will we know that it is the psychodrama opposed to being in group that creates the change?
You won’t for sure (pretty much the main problem in all group research), although if the impact of psychodrama shows consistently, a case can be made for it accounting for a portion of the effective change variance. Would take collecting more data at more complex levels (and using more advanced statistical procedures).
How valid is self reporting on scales like this considered to be?
Moot point. To answer that question look at the number of on-line research studies that have been propagating (with results being published based on statistical control approaches). The psychology community certainly doesn’t seem concerned (at least based on their actions rather than their words).
I know we use it for the evaluations that we do at MD Anderson for the communication skill workshops we do using sociodrama…but wouldn’t it be considered more
valid if we also had subjects fill out the evaluation three or six months later?
This “additional study” can be done. The possibility is built into the informed consents. However, the self-selection problem (a version of experimental mortality) still must be addressed. The “more valid” aspect can be addressed, as it was in the original Meta-Analysis of therapy study.
While you are making good points (as I imagine all critics will), and certainly those studies can be done (see the informed consents), you are missing my point. The odds of ever getting most psychodramatists to do true experimental (randomized trials /control group studies, ala the Solomon Four Group Design, gold standard for experimental research) is virtually nil. As Marty Selligman showed with the Consumer Reports study, showing effectiveness need not be that “perfect.” I’m trying to get everyone in the community involved, by asking/demanding very little of them and/or of those receiving services. You are certainly welcome to discard this idea and/or pursue others.
My aim is to have the community– in the form of ASGPP, the Board of Examiners, and other parallel international entities—band together and get something done. I don’t care who does it, as long as it gets done. This “it” is the simplest “it” I can come up with. Being pretty much retired and getting along OK, I have very little personal investment in such outcomes as publications from this project. I feel sad, mostly, that an approach that has so much to offer will likely continue to be a footnote, at best, if that.
