In support of single-case clinical studies.

Kiene and von Schön-Angerer present many important ideas in their paper ("Single-Case Causality Assessment as a Basis for Clinical Judgment") in the January 1998 issue [of the journal Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine]. They clearly identify some of the typically unrecognized assumptions underlying common conventional empirical approaches and elaborate the limitations of some of these approaches—particularly the use of randomized clinical trials in assessing causality. They provide a compelling and useful discussion in support of the epistemological, methodological, and practical possibilities inherent in single cases as a powerful alternative to the usual group-statistical approach for assessing treatment efficacy and outcome.