Validez a posteriori de los diagnósticos clínicos

Abstract

A posteriori validity of clinical diagnosis. The tenet holding that success outcomes from treatment validate applied treatment as well pretreatment assessment is a commonplace in behavior therapy and behavioral assessment. Nevertheless, this belief must be maintained only if there is evidence that any other factor has not produced such success outcomes. Since in psychotherapy other factors frequently can be brought to account for outcomes, this belief is unjustified and sometimes could prevent therapist to learn objectively from experience. Several mechanisms are responsible for maintaining this tenet, mainly unscientific clinical hypotheses, monocausal reasoning, hypothesis substantiation strategies, rather than hypothesis refutation, regression to mean, and the learning structure of therapy setting.