They are also consistent with the field's emphasis on trying to distinguish the most useful approach to take with a particular type of client, based on diagnosis. Although at this point some of the protocols may be quite crude, they represent a means of integrating the diagnosis-specific outcome research that has been accumulating and presenting conclusions from this research in forms usable to clinicians. Some of the criticism directed at these protocols stems from the inflexible conduct they seem to compel. In fact, when you look at most of the protocols being used by MCOs, you find that they present only a skeleton of treatment. In fleshing this out, the clinician retains considerable discretion.
Treatment can conform to most protocols without sacrificing individualization.
The protocols primarily serve to hold clinicians to a basic standard of care. Their individual skill in presenting the treatment in a way that will be usefully received by the client still matters greatly. The protocols do not diminish differences across therapists in communication skill, empathy, and astuteness. There are some problems. The common factors research has failed to support the bedrock assumption that the particular techniques the clinician chooses to employ are highly influential in determining treatment outcome.