The Role of the Therapist in Common Factors: Continuing the Dialogue

The common factors debate conducted on the pages of this and other major family therapy journals has evolved toward a preliminary consensus that the therapist plays a crucial role in activating and effectively bundling common and model-specific factors in the delivery of successful treatment. However, Blow, Sprenkle, and Davis (2007) remain unconvinced that therapist-worldview/model-worldview congruence, which I have hypothesized plays a determinative role in enabling the therapist to effect this activation and bundling, does, indeed, play such a role. In this article, I use key findings of Davis and Piercy's (2007a, 2007b) recently reported research on common factors to answer Blow and colleagues' objections to my hypothesis.