COGNITIVE-BEHAVIOR THERAPY VERSUS PHARMACOTHERAPY - NOW THAT THE JURYRETURNED ITS VERDICT, ITS TIME TO PRESENT THE REST OF THE EVIDENCE

Recent reanalyses suggest that pharmacotherapy was superior to cogniti ve-behavior therapy in the acute treatment of more severely depressed outpatients in the National Institute of Mental Health Treatment of De pression Collaborative Research Program (TDCRP). At the same time, thi s finding was neither robust across sites within the TDCRP nor consist ent with findings from other studies. D. F. Klein has argued that thos e other studies were inherently flawed because they did not include pi ll-placebo controls, an argument that he extended to drug-psychotherap y comparisons in the treatment of panic as well. It is agreed that the inclusion of such controls would have facilitated the interpretation of tile findings, but it is not agreed that their omission rendered th ose studies uninterpretable. Cognitive-behavior therapy remains a viab le alternative to pharmacotherapy in the treatment of depression and a particularly promising intervention in the treatment of panic disorde r.