Hockenbury Discovering Psychology 5th txtbk

Evaluating the Effectiveness of Psychotherapy 601Evaluating the Effectiveness of PsychotherapyKey Themes• Decades of research demonstrate that psychotherapy is effective in helpingpeople with psychological disorders.Key Questions• What are the common factors that contribute to successful outcomes inpsychotherapy?• What is eclecticism?Let’s start with a simple fact: Most people with psychological symptoms do not seekhelp from mental health professionals (Kessler & others, 1994, 2004). This suggeststhat most people eventually weather their psychological problems without professionalintervention. Some people cope with psychological difficulties with the helpand support of friends and family. And some people eventually improve simply withthe passage of time, a phenomenon called spontaneous remission (see Eysenck, 1952,1994). Does psychotherapy offer significant benefits over just waiting for the possible“spontaneous remission” of symptoms?The basic strategy for investigating this issue is to compare people who enter psychotherapywith a carefully selected, matched control group of people who do not receivepsychotherapy (Freeman & Power, 2007; Nezu & Nezu, 2008). During the pasthalf-century, hundreds of such studies have investigated the effectiveness of the majorforms of psychotherapy (Chambless & Ollendick, 2001; Cooper, 2008; Nathan &Gorman, 2007; Orlinsky & others, 2004). To combine and interpret the results ofsuch large numbers of studies, researchers have used a statistical technique called metaanalysis.Meta-analysis involves pooling the results of several studies into a single analysis,essentially creating one large study that can reveal overall trends in the data.When meta-analysis is used to summarize studies that compare people who receivepsychotherapy treatment to no-treatment controls, researchers consistently arrive atthe same conclusion: Psychotherapy is significantly more effective than no treatment.On the average, the person who completes psychotherapy treatment is better off thanabout 80 percent of those in theuntreated control group (Cooper,2008; Lambert & Ogles, 2004).The benefits of psychotherapyusually become apparent in a relativelyshort time. As shown inFigure 14.4, approximately 50percent of people show significantimprovement by the eighthweekly session of psychotherapy.By the end of six months ofweekly psychotherapy sessions,about 75 percent are significantlyimproved (Baldwin & others,2009; Lambert & others, 2001).The gains that people make as aresult of psychotherapy also tendto endure long after the therapyhas ended, sometimes for years(Lambert & Ogles, 2004). Evenbrief forms of psychotherapy tendto produce beneficial and longlastingchanges (Power, 2005).Percentage improved100%90807060504030201002 4 8 13 26Participants receivingpsychotherapy52 104Number of weekly sessionsParticipants notreceivingpsychotherapy“The drug has, however, proved moreeffective than traditional psychoanalysis.”Figure 14.4 PsychotherapyVersus No Treatment This graphdepicts the rates of improvementfor more than 2,000 peoplein weekly psychotherapyand for 500 people who did notreceive psychotherapy. As youcan see, after only eight weeklysessions, better than 50 percentof participants receiving psychotherapywere significantlyimproved. After the samelength of time, only 4 percentof participants not receivingpsychotherapy showed “spontaneousremission” of symptoms.Clearly, psychotherapy acceleratesboth the rate and degreeof improvement for those experiencingpsychological problems.Source: Adapted from McNeilly & Howard(1991). Reprinted by permission of GuilfordPress.© The New Yorker Collection 2008 Paul Noth fromcartoonbank.com. All Right Reserved.