Psychotherapy outcome: Smith and Glass' conclusions stand up under scrutiny.

Abstract

A sample of the original set of psychotherapy outcome studies analyzed by Smith and Glass was randomly selected for reanalysis to address criticisms of the methodological quality of the studies in the original sample. Each study was evaluated to see whether it had a no-treatment or placebo control group formed through random assignment. The subsample of studies judged to be appropriately controlled was then reanalyzed using Smith and Glass' meta-analytic procedures. The potential influence of statistical nonindependence of results on the overall findings reported by Smith and Glass was also examined by: (a) comparing the results obtained using Smith and Glass' procedures, in which each outcome measure is treated as an independent unit of analysis, with the results obtained when the study serves as the unit of analysis and (b) calculating separately the results obtained at each of three possible points in time. The results of the present study, in which these potential artifacts were examined, uphold the positive conclusions regarding psychotherapeutic efficacy originally drawn by Smith and Glass.

A Review of the Common Factors Model and Its Application in Pain Management

“…It was then when discussions about common factors began to appear in psychology textbooks and manuscripts. Soon thereafter, several meta-analyses have illustrated the absolute efficacy of psychotherapy [50,[52][53][54]. Two important findings have been noted from those analyses, 1) that improved research methods did not increase the effects found and 2) that effect sizes were comparable across all treatments.…”

Medicalized Psychiatry and the Talking Cure: A Hermeneutic Intervention

“…At the same time, however, there is substantial evidence that supports the efficacy of the talking cure (Smith et al 1980;Landman and Dawes 1982;Mojtabai and Olfson 2008). Indeed, despite the decline of the talking cure in psychiatric practice, many psychiatric offices either have a resident psychotherapist to whom clients can be referred or have a list of recommended psychotherapists who can back up the physician's plan of treatment.…”

“…In the broad sense of this word, traditional psychoanalysis and various forms of depth and humanistic psychologies count as psychotherapy, as do group therapy, role-playing therapies, journaling and other forms of treatment that emphasize the client's self-expression as having a curative effect. To say that psychotherapy is in decline, then, is to say that although a number of studies have demonstrated that talking to a patient is an effective form of treating mental problems (e.g., Smith and Glass 1977;Smith et al 1980;Landman and Dawes 1982;Mojtabai and Olfson 2008), traditional talking cures no longer are seen as offering the primary or best path to treating these problems. What takes center-stage today is a form of treatment, handled primarily by physicians, that uses pharmaceuticals to affect changes in brain chemistry.…”

Validation de l'Échelle de Motivation du Client face à la Thérapie (EMCT), version française du Client Motivation for Therapy Scale (CMOTS) /

“…Selon l'Organisation Mondiale de la Santé, cinq des dix principales causes d'incapacité dans le monde sont liées à des troubles mentaux. La recherche établit clairement que la psychothérapie est efficace pour résoudre de nombreux problèmes psychologiques ou d'adaptation (Smith, Glass, & Miller, 1980;Andrews & Harvey, 1981;Landman & Dawes, 1982;Shapiro & Shapiro, 1982;Lambert, Shapiro, & Bergin, 1994;Miller, Duncan, & Hubble, 1997;Wampold, 2001). Cette conclusion s'appuie sur de multiples recensions des écrits et de nombreuses méta-analyses couvrant 60 ans de travaux sur des milliers de personnes présentant un vaste éventail de problèmes traités par une variété d'approches.…”