Abstract
The term common factors refers to effective aspects of treatment shared by diverse forms of psychotherapy. Theorists and researchers interested in them argue that they may be more important than are factors unique to specific treatments and hailed by advocates of these treatments to be the important change agents (see e.g., Frank, 1973). This argument is bolstered by the fact that whereas psychotherapy has been shown to lead to beneficial effects, rarely has any specific type of treatment been shown to be superior to any other (Lambert, Shapiro, & Bergin, 1986; Luborsky, Singer, & Luborsky, 1975; Smith, Glass, & Miller, 1980; Stiles, Shapiro, & Elliot, 1986). If the multitude of different systems examined in these reviews can legitimately claim equal success, and it seems that they can, then maybe their diversity is illusory and they share core features which, in fact, are the curative elements responsible for therapeutic success (cf. Lambert, 1986).
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Weinberger, J. (1993). Common Factors in Psychotherapy. In: Stricker, G., Gold, J.R. (eds) Comprehensive Handbook of Psychotherapy Integration. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-9782-4_4
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