The Stage Model for Psychotherapy Manual Development: A Valuable Tool for Promoting Evidence‐ Based Practice

This article provides a commentary on the stage model for psychotherapy manual development proposed by Carroll and Nuro (this issue). We endorse the emphasis on the evolution of treatment manuals, dependent on their stage of development, research base, and intended audience. At the same time, we discuss some of the conceptual and practical challenges to the smooth and steady transition of treatment manuals from efficacy trials into clinical practice. These issues include incentives for researchers to conduct effectiveness trials, lack of funding for such research, skepticism in some quarters of the field about the utility of treatment manuals, issues of dissemination, and the general lack of feedback from the clinical community to the developers of treatment manuals about ways to make them flexible enough for use in clinical practice. We end with an encouragement of the template of a stage model for manual development.