THE EFFECTIVENESS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY - THE CONSUMER REPORTS STUDY

Consumer Reports (1995, November) published an article which concluded that patients benefited very substantially from psychotherapy, that l ong-term treatment did considerably better than short-term treatment, and that psychotherapy alone did not differ in effectiveness from medi cation plus psychotherapy. Furthermore, no specific modality of psycho therapy did better than any other for any disorder; psychologists, psy chiatrists, and social workers did not differ in their effectiveness a s treaters; and all did better than marriage counselors and long-term family doctoring. Patients whose length of therapy or choice of therap ist was limited by insurance or managed care did worse. The methodolog ical virtues and drawbacks of this large-scale survey are examined and contrasted with the more traditional efficacy study, in which patient s are randomized into a manualized, fixed duration treatment or into c ontrol groups. I conclude that the Consumer Reports survey complements the efficacy method, and that the best features of these two methods can be combined into a more ideal method that will best provide empiri cal validation of psychotherapy.