THE ROLE OF AVOIDANCE AND OBSESSIVENESS IN MATCHING PATIENTS TO COGNITIVE AND INTERPERSONAL PSYCHOTHERAPY - EMPIRICAL-FINDINGS FROM THE TREATMENT FOR DEPRESSION COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH-PROGRAM

This article examines the hypothesis that cognitive therapy (CT) is mo re effective than interpersonal therapy (IPT) for treatment of depress ed patients with an elevated level of avoidant personality, whereas th e reverse holds for depressed patients with elevated level of obsessiv e personality. This hypothesis was derived in part from the preliminar y results of previous unpublished pilot work, which examined the cours e of dynamic and cognitive therapies for avoidant and obsessive-compul sive personality disorders. With the ''completer'' data set available from the Treatment for Depression Collaborative Research Program (I. E lkin et al., 1989), the expected significant interactions between trea tment (CT vs. IPT) and avoidance and between treatment and obsessivene ss were found. A significant interaction was also found between marita l status and treatment, indicating that married patients did better af ter CT, whereas single and noncohabiting patients improved more after IPT. Similar patterns of results were found using the Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression and the Beck Depression inventory. A matching fac tor formula of patients to CT vs. IPT is presented.