CONCLUSION
This article described PCIT, a theoretically based,
assessment-driven, clinically grounded, and empirically
supported short-term treatment for young
children with disruptive behavior and their families.
As the evidence base of PCIT expands, it will
be important to extend the investigations of effectiveness
to “real-world” clinics where treatment is
provided without the intensive scrutiny of supervisors
and cameras recording the fidelity of sessions
delivered by doctoral-level psychology students.
The empirically supported treatments for children
have not yet become the standard of care in most
community clinics, where most young children
with disruptive behavior disorders are treated.
The dissemination of PCIT is only beginning to
be addressed (see Herschell et al96 for a discussion
of PCIT training models). A text has been written
that outlines PCIT and provides recommendations
for its implementation,97 and workshops have been
conducted at national conferences (eg, Association
for the Advancement of Behavior Therapy, American
Psychological Association). Maintaining treatment
integrity is a primary concern, however,
because the effectiveness of PCIT cannot be assured
without adherence to its critical components
(ie, coding the parent-child interactions to guide
treatment sessions) and clinical guidelines. The
issue of dissemination is a critical direction for
research and a critical concern for all of the
empirically supported treatments for young children
with disruptive behavior disorders because of
the lifelong consequences of disruptive behavior
that is not effectively treated to families and to
society.