A reason to combine PSST and PMT was not only to increase
the impact of treatment on the child, but also to provide the
parents with more effective means of parenting and interacting
with their children at home. The benefits were expected to be
reflected in measures of parent stress and dysfunction, critical
contextual factors related to the impact and maintenance of
treatment gains. The combined treatment lead to gains in both
child and parent functioning. Interestingly, improvements in children and parents were not highly correlated. It may well be
that child and parent change are not linearly related. A specific
threshold may need to be crossed in child improvement to
make a difference in parent stress in the home and in how the
parents view themselves.