This paper reports preliminary findings of an experiment study that was designed to develop and pilot test an integrative form of psychological intervention. Prescriptive Psychotherapy draws procedures from a set of cross-cutting guiding principles. It focuses on the fit of treatment procedure to patient characteristics and postulates that this fit will add predictive power to the contributions of initial patient factors, classes of treatment procedure, and the therapeutic alliance. A pilot test on 40 depressed, stimulant dependent patients confirmed that the fit of patient to the intervention added substantially to the effectiveness of treatment, especially during a six-month follow-up period. The findings suggest that patient factors alter the patient’s prognosis, that interventions contribute a modest influence on outcome, and the therapeutic alliance adds additional predictive power. However, the fit of treatment to patient appears to be more powerful than any of the other classes of variables, particularly in influencing depression and sense of well-being.

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Psychotherapy,Prescriptive therapy,Integration,Chemical abuse,Alcohol,Experimental study