How the Case of Vumile Contributes to the Evidence Base for Cognitive Therapy with Social Phobia as an Empirically Grounded Clinical Intervention

Abstract

This article is a response to commentaries by Davison (2005), S. Fishman (2006), Sanderson (2006), and Turk (2006) on Edwards and Kannan’s (2006) case study, which documents the response to group therapy of Vumile, a South African student with social phobia. The case material is discussed in relation to five themes raised by the commentators: (a) the tension between structure and flexibility in manualization of treatments, (b) theoretical and practical aspects of the planning and implementation of the intervention, (c) the adaptation of an individual treatment to a group therapy format, (d) methodological aspects of data collection, and (e) methodological aspects related to the drawing of conclusions from the case material. Broader implications are drawn for the place of case-based methodology in the development of evidence-based practice in psychotherapy.