[Speaking from a UK perspective with much less knowledge of non-medical psychotherapy training]
I think the importance is having a strong mental health research background, particularly in systematic review and meta-analysis. If you have an expert in this field then the need for clinical experience becomes less important (perhaps, depends on HLI’s intended scope).
It’s fair to say psychology and psychiatry do commonly blur boundaries with psychotherapy as there are different routes of qualification—it can be with a PhD through a psychology/therapy pathway, or there is a specialism in psychotherapy that can be obtained as part of psychiatry training (a bit like how neurologists are qualified through specialism in internal medicine training). Psychotherapists tend to be qualified in specific modalities in order to practice them independently e.g. you might achieve accreditation in psychoanalytic psychotherapy, etc. There are a vast number of different professionals (me included, during my core training in psychiatry) who deliver psychotherapy under supervision of accredited practitioners so the definition of therapist is blurry.
Psychotherapy is similarly researched through the perspective of delivering psychotherapy which perhaps has more of a psychology focus, and as a treatment of various psychiatric illnesses (+/- in combination or comparison with medication, or novel therapies like psychadelics) which perhaps is closer to psychiatric research. Diagnosis of psychiatric illnesses like depression and directing treatment tends to remain the responsibility of doctors (psychiatrists or primary care physicians), and so psychiatry training requires the development of competencies in psychotherapy, even if delivery of psychotherapy does not always form the bulk of day-to-day practice, as it relates to formulating treatment plans for patients with psychiatric illness.
The issues I raise relate to the clinical presentation of depression as it pertains to impairment/wellbeing, diagnosis of depression, symptom rating scales, psychotherapy as a defined treatment, etc.; as well as the wide range of psychopathology captured in the dataset. My feeling is the breadth of this would benefit from a background in psychiatry for the assumptions I made about HLI’s focus of the meta-analysis. However, if the importance is the depth of understanding IPT as an intervention, or perhaps the hollistic outcomes of psychotherapy particularly related to young women/girls in LMICs, then you might want a psychotherapist (PhD or psychiatrist) working with accreditation in the modality or with the population of interest. If you found someone who regularly publishes systematic reviews and meta-analyses of psychotherapy efficacy then that would probably trump both regardless of clinical background. Or perhaps all three is best.
You’re both right to clarify this, though—I was giving my opinion from my background in clinical/academic psychiatry and so I talk about it a lot! When I mention the field of study etc, I meant mental health research more broadly given it depends on HLI’s aims/scope to know what specific area this would be.
[Edit—Sorry, I’ve realised my lack of digging into the background of HLI members/contributors to this research could render the above highly offensive if there are individuals from this field on staff, and also makes me appear extremely arrogant. For clarity, it’s possible all of my concerns were actually fully-rationalised, deliberate choices by HLI that I’ve not understood from my quick sense-check, or I might disagree with but are still valid.
[However, my impression from the work, in particular the design and methodology, is that there is a lack of psychiatric and/or psychotherapy knowledge (given the questions I had from a clinical perspective); and a lack of confidence in systematic review and meta-analysis from how far this deviates from Cochrane/PRISMA that I was trying to explain in more accessible terms in my comment without being exhaustive. It’s possible contributors to this work did have experience in these areas but were not represented in the write-up, or not involved at the appropriate times in the work, etc. I’m not going to seek out whether or not that is the case as I think it would make this personal given the size of the organisation, and I’m worried that if I check I might find a psychotherapy professor on staff I’ve now crossed (jk ;-)).
[It’s interesting to me either way, as both seem like problems—HLI not identifying they lacked appropriate skills to conduct this research, or seemingly not employing those with the relevant skills appropriately to conduct or communicate it—and it has relevance outside of this particular meta-analysis in the consideration of further outputs from HLI, or evaluation of orgs by EA. In any case, peer-review offers reassurance to the wider EA community that external subject-matter expertise has been consulted in whatever field of interest (with the additional benefit of shutting people like me down very quickly), and provides an opportunity for better research if deficits identified from peer-review suggest skills need to be reallocated or additional skills sought in order to meet a good standard.]
A professional psychotherapy researcher, or even just a psychotherapist, would be more appropriate than a psychiatrist no?
[Speaking from a UK perspective with much less knowledge of non-medical psychotherapy training]
I think the importance is having a strong mental health research background, particularly in systematic review and meta-analysis. If you have an expert in this field then the need for clinical experience becomes less important (perhaps, depends on HLI’s intended scope).
It’s fair to say psychology and psychiatry do commonly blur boundaries with psychotherapy as there are different routes of qualification—it can be with a PhD through a psychology/therapy pathway, or there is a specialism in psychotherapy that can be obtained as part of psychiatry training (a bit like how neurologists are qualified through specialism in internal medicine training). Psychotherapists tend to be qualified in specific modalities in order to practice them independently e.g. you might achieve accreditation in psychoanalytic psychotherapy, etc. There are a vast number of different professionals (me included, during my core training in psychiatry) who deliver psychotherapy under supervision of accredited practitioners so the definition of therapist is blurry.
Psychotherapy is similarly researched through the perspective of delivering psychotherapy which perhaps has more of a psychology focus, and as a treatment of various psychiatric illnesses (+/- in combination or comparison with medication, or novel therapies like psychadelics) which perhaps is closer to psychiatric research. Diagnosis of psychiatric illnesses like depression and directing treatment tends to remain the responsibility of doctors (psychiatrists or primary care physicians), and so psychiatry training requires the development of competencies in psychotherapy, even if delivery of psychotherapy does not always form the bulk of day-to-day practice, as it relates to formulating treatment plans for patients with psychiatric illness.
The issues I raise relate to the clinical presentation of depression as it pertains to impairment/wellbeing, diagnosis of depression, symptom rating scales, psychotherapy as a defined treatment, etc.; as well as the wide range of psychopathology captured in the dataset. My feeling is the breadth of this would benefit from a background in psychiatry for the assumptions I made about HLI’s focus of the meta-analysis. However, if the importance is the depth of understanding IPT as an intervention, or perhaps the hollistic outcomes of psychotherapy particularly related to young women/girls in LMICs, then you might want a psychotherapist (PhD or psychiatrist) working with accreditation in the modality or with the population of interest. If you found someone who regularly publishes systematic reviews and meta-analyses of psychotherapy efficacy then that would probably trump both regardless of clinical background. Or perhaps all three is best.
You’re both right to clarify this, though—I was giving my opinion from my background in clinical/academic psychiatry and so I talk about it a lot! When I mention the field of study etc, I meant mental health research more broadly given it depends on HLI’s aims/scope to know what specific area this would be.
[Edit—Sorry, I’ve realised my lack of digging into the background of HLI members/contributors to this research could render the above highly offensive if there are individuals from this field on staff, and also makes me appear extremely arrogant. For clarity, it’s possible all of my concerns were actually fully-rationalised, deliberate choices by HLI that I’ve not understood from my quick sense-check, or I might disagree with but are still valid.
[However, my impression from the work, in particular the design and methodology, is that there is a lack of psychiatric and/or psychotherapy knowledge (given the questions I had from a clinical perspective); and a lack of confidence in systematic review and meta-analysis from how far this deviates from Cochrane/PRISMA that I was trying to explain in more accessible terms in my comment without being exhaustive. It’s possible contributors to this work did have experience in these areas but were not represented in the write-up, or not involved at the appropriate times in the work, etc. I’m not going to seek out whether or not that is the case as I think it would make this personal given the size of the organisation, and I’m worried that if I check I might find a psychotherapy professor on staff I’ve now crossed (jk ;-)).
[It’s interesting to me either way, as both seem like problems—HLI not identifying they lacked appropriate skills to conduct this research, or seemingly not employing those with the relevant skills appropriately to conduct or communicate it—and it has relevance outside of this particular meta-analysis in the consideration of further outputs from HLI, or evaluation of orgs by EA. In any case, peer-review offers reassurance to the wider EA community that external subject-matter expertise has been consulted in whatever field of interest (with the additional benefit of shutting people like me down very quickly), and provides an opportunity for better research if deficits identified from peer-review suggest skills need to be reallocated or additional skills sought in order to meet a good standard.]