Results of psychotherapy

Abstract

A controlled double blind study was made of 299 non-psychotic female psychiatric clinic patients divided into six groups, with members of each group dealt with in a different manner from those in other groups. Those in one group had one or two hour-long psychotherapy sessions a week. Four groups were limited to brief visits but were given one of three kinds of drugs or a placebo. One group was merely put on a waiting list and received no therapy. As determined by a variety of independent measures, there was a fairly uniform average improvement of all groups except the one that received no treatment. Follow-up 10 to 18 months after termination of treatment revealed that the average patient had maintained her improvement and that those who had received no treatment showed considerable improvement after they were removed from the waiting list.The findings suggested that the widespread preference for the traditional outpatient psychotherapy is based as much on the physician's bias as on proven greater effectiveness over briefer treatment methods. There was some confirmation that many things other than the development of understanding enter into much of the so-called psychoanalytically oriented psychotherapy and may have profound effect on the outcome.