JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Manuals are critical to the dissemination of psychotherapy. Yet, the proliferation of psychotherapy manuals has not been well-understood, and no work has aimed to assess or review the existing landscape of psychotherapy manuals. Little is known about the breadth, scope, and foci of extant psychotherapy manuals.

Objective:

This scoping review aims to identify and explore the landscape of existing book-based psychotherapy manuals. By identifying and categorizing psychotherapy manuals, we aim to make a novel contribution that will have critical implications for current methods of developing, aggregating, synthesizing, and translating knowledge about psychotherapeutic treatments.

Methods:

This scoping review will review book-based psychotherapy manuals published from 1950-2022. Traditional search and API-based search methods will be used with search terms defined a priori to identify relevant results. This review will leverage machine learning methods to enhance and expedite the screening process. Primary screening of results will be conducted by at least two authors. Data will be extracted and double-coded by research assistants. Conflicts on screening and coding decisions will be addressed through consensus discussions.

Results:

The scoping review is expected to identify common elements of manuals, establish how the foci and content of manuals have changed over time, and identify coverage and gaps of extant psychotherapy manuals. These results will be critical for future work focused on aggregating and disseminating knowledge about psychotherapeutic treatments.

Conclusions:

This review will be the first to provide knowledge about the vast landscape of psychotherapy manuals that exist. Findings from this study will form the foundation for aggregating and disseminating decades of decentralized knowledge on psychotherapeutic treatments.