Research and service-oriented studies are reviewed to indicate issues and promising strategies for evaluation of field-based parent-training. The main areas which professionals and researchers must address themselves to are indicated. A variety of multiple-outcome measures are used. Skill development and transfer of skills to the natural environment remains a poorly evaluated area. Professional workers need to attempt more control in methodology, reporting practice and using research analyses. Researchers will have to direct study to assessing realiability and validity and developing practical instruments for widespread use. The implications of previous work are discussed. The emphasis of the paper is that direct observations of parents working in their natural settings should be the preferred means of evaluation.

It is hypothesized that phobics have cognitive representations of phobic stimuli that are relatively lacking in detail and elaboration, and that this is reflected in imagery relating to them. In a study of verbal imagery for coping with a spider, the accounts of phobics were found to be briefer and to include fewer stages. In a study of stimulus imagery, vividness was separated into its two components of (a) awareness of the image and (b) degree of detail, following a similar distinction proposed by Klinger. Awareness, but not detail, was found to be greater in phobics, though the hypothesis of less detail in phobics was not confirmed. It is suggested that a lack of elaboration of phobic imagery is likely to impede anxiety reduction in imaginal desensitization, and to reduce the effectiveness of imaginal representations of coping behaviour.

The successful treatment of faeces retention in a 6-year-old boy is discussed in the light of recent findings in the literature which suggest the need to take both family and therapist variables into account when training parents in child management skills. Details are given of the family variables considered relevant to the presenting problem in this case: lack of paternal motivation to co-operate in treatment, maternal depression and social isolation, and problem behaviour in a sibling. The treatment plan designed to take account of these variables is described, as well as the problems (and their resolution) encountered in implementing it. Successful outcome was maintained at three and six month follow-up. It is argued that wider use of this model of an expanded case study would provide useful hypotheses for future research, as well as clinical relevance for other practitioners.

This study looks at the use of individual scaling techniques, namely the Personal Questionnaire Rapid Scaling Technique (PQRST) to monitor symptom change during a social skills group. This augments the more familiar observational measures and self report questionnaires. The results suggest that these individual questionnaires may be useful to clarify social interaction difficulties and the process of change in social skills training.

A 7-year-old hyperactive boy with multiple problems was treated using a combination of interventions, applied sequentially over 14 months. The first phase of treatment was participation in a drug trial (placebo, then drug) and this was followed by cognitive-behavioural training designed to teach strategies with which to approach academic work. Teacher and parent behaviour ratings showed improvement over the drug trial period and educational gains were made during the cognitive-behavioural training, both in the area specifically taught and other academic subjects. The problems choosing appropriate targets and of disentangling the effects of different treatment components are discussed.

A case of “checking” obsessive compulsive neurosis in a young adult is described. It's evolution is traced from early behaviour viewed as adaptive to partial sightedness which becomes maladaptive when autonomous obsessions and rituals develop. The concepts of “preparedness” and “self-stimulatory behaviour” amongst others are used to examine possible reasons for this change. The relevance to more usual cases where no predisposing handicap exists is discussed.