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Are there any studies which show whether psychotherapy is successful?

I'm not sure what popular wisdom says about the effectiveness of therapy. Some believe therapy (psychoanalysis, CBT, etc) is a load of nonsense and that patients never actually get better. Whereas others swear by it, and claim therapy has a high success rate and changes lives. Where is the proof of either?

I've had a look at The Great Psychotherapy Debate by Wampold but it doesn't point to any studies where patients report whether or not they feel therapy has worked for them. Does anyone know of any research into the success rate of therapy amongst patients?

Reply 1

Id and Ego seek

lmao, have you read about eysenck's study? 1952 iirc. he was one of the infamous psychologists that claimed psychoanalysis didn't work and that receiving no treatment was more effective. he found that 44% of patients improved with psychoanalysis, but 66% improved through spontaneous remission. however eysneck stupidly included patients who dropped our of psychoanalysis in his analysis, and resulted in more tests being done. bergin in 1971 did not include such patients and arrived at a 91% success rate with psychoanalysis.
have a look at these studies too because de maat et al. has done a lot of work on the subject.

Reply 2

Joinedup

Well you're asking a very broad question, iirc there is evidence that cbt is effective for depression - which is why nice approved it.
Are all types of therapy effective against all conditions? Good luck finding an answer to something like that.

Reply 3

Joinedup

Cbt isn't psychoanalysis btw. I don't think it's useful to lump it in with other approaches in order to decide whether any of them are any use.

Reply 4

Bluth.

It's not so much about whether therapy (as a whole) works, but if it actually matters what therapy you get (cbt vs. PCT vs. psycho analysis...). Take a look at papers on the equivalence paradox of psychotherapy. Some papers will argue that you need a specific therapy for a specific type of disorder, where as some meta-analyses have found that many therapies have equivalent success rates. It may be that simply being listened to/ airing problems is the vital component of a successful therapy. Take a look at what is known as the dodo bird verdict.

(edited 11 years ago)