Effectiveness of Psychotherapies for Various Problems

This document is a review of research on the effectiveness of psychotherapies for various problems in psychology. It discusses the findings from four different research papers, highlighting their significance, limitations, and implications for future research. The review concludes that psychotherapy is effective in treating depression and other mental health problems, but further research is needed to understand the mechanisms behind the therapy and improve methodological rigor.

Running head: PSYCHOLOGY
Psychology
Name of the student:
Name of the University:
Author’s note

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Introduction:
Psychotherapy has emerged as a novel intervention in the field of mental care to treat
different mental problems in patient. Psychotherapies are interventions that address emotional
and mental health problems in patient by one-to-one sessions with patients. However, as it is an
emerging treatment which is not routinely used in all settings, there is a need to review research
papers to identify the effectiveness of psychotherapies for various problems. The review will be
done with the research question ‘What does research suggest about the effectiveness of
psychotherapies for various problems?’
Literature review:
By the review of past research evidence, four articles have been found, which
demonstrates the effectiveness of psychotherapies in the field of psychology. The first paper by
Schulberg, Raue and Rollman (2002) gives a critical review on the clinical and cost effectiveness
of psychotherapy for treating major and minor depression. By the review of recent research
studies, the author shows that implementation of psychotherapy contributes to better clinical
outcome for patient compared to usual care provided by primary care physician. The outcome is
also similar to outcomes achieved following pharmacotherapy. The significance of this paper is
that it analyzed not only the clinical effectiveness of psychotherapy but also the cost
effectiveness of the intervention by demonstrating that the fiscal cost for the treatment is high.
However, some methodological limitations that influence the quality of this paper includes lack
of details regarding search strategy and process used to retrieved articles. To confirm the
effectiveness of psychotherapy in treating depression, there is a need to further review the
findings by identifying high quality literature review or systematic review papers.

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The second paper by Stiles, Shapiro and Elliott (1986) revealed existence of different
diverse forms of psychotherapies. However, many of these interventions deviate, suggesting
limitations in the approach. Another reason behind lesser precision and lack of success in finding
the efficacy of psychotherapy is understood from the fact that the paper was published in 1986
and psychotherapy research may not be have developed so much in that time. Despite this
limitation, the main findings emerging from the differentiation of outcome measures in that time
is that effect of different therapies differ. The main reason cited for that change may be multi-
dimensional and holistic approach is needed to assess the multiple vantage points. The study
outcomes can be used to plan future research topic and identify client behavior or factors that can
have an impact on the outcome of such therapies. Paying attention to therapeutic alliance is also
important as the paper summarizes client’s report of expecting warmth, empathy and
genuineness from therapists. Hence, future research should pay attention to examining the
relation between therapeutic alliance and clinical outcomes after psychotherapy.
The review of recent research papers resulted in the extraction of a consumer reports
study by Seligman (1995) which concluded that long-term psychotherapies gave better outcomes
compared to short term treatment and the overall benefit from the therapy was very low. This
finding emerged by conducting a consumer reports survey with twenty thousand mental health
professionals and using 26 interview questionnaires to assess the effectiveness of different
treatment modalities. Another finding from the research was that there was no difference in
outcome for clients receiving psychotherapy alone and those receiving psychotherapy plus
medication. With regard to clinical significance of the paper, it was found that only 54%
regarded things to be a lot better after psychotherapy. The findings are not reliable because the
survey did not used a control group to evaluate the research outcomes and reliance on self-report

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further reduced the efficacy and reliability of the work. Hence, with regard to these limitations,
the findings of the study can further be refined by designed robust research design and
addressing biases in the paper.
The review of recent research literatures also gives the insight that psychotherapies are
effective interventions for the treatment of psychopathological disorders in both children and
adults. The key findings from this study by Remschmidt (2003) was intervention has been
successfully applied to treat conditions like anxiety, depression, eating disorder, obsessive
compulsive disorder and conduct problems. This is the most relevant paper that addresses the
research question and shows how different types of problem are resolved by psychotherapies.
The study confirmed the effectiveness of the therapy and it also suggested that multi-component
programs are more useful compared to single interventions. The strength of the paper is that it
reviews multiple papers to demonstrate the effectiveness of the therapy. However, to further
increase the delivery of psychotherapy intervention in mental health care setting, it is necessary
to conduct future research to compare the efficacy of psychotherapy compared to other
interventions and analyze the mechanism behind psychotherapeutic interventions.
Conclusion:
From the review of research on effectiveness of psychotherapy in treatment different
problems, it can be concluded that psychotherapy is effective in treating depression and other
mental health problems. However, as research evidence demonstrates lack of evaluation
regarding mechanism behind the therapy and lack of methodological rigour in past studies,
conducting future research with strong research design is critical to increase uptake of this
therapy in mental health settings.

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References:
Remschmidt, H. (2003). Evidence concerning the effectiveness of psychotherapies with children
and adolescents. Current opinion in psychiatry, 16(4), 389-393.
Schulberg, H. C., Raue, P. J., & Rollman, B. L. (2002). The effectiveness of psychotherapy in
treating depressive disorders in primary care practice: clinical and cost
perspectives. General hospital psychiatry, 24(4), 203-212.
Seligman, M. E. P. (1995). The effectiveness of psychotherapy: The Consumer Reports study.
American Psychologist, 50(12), 965-974.
Stiles, W. B., Shapiro, D. A., & Elliott, R. (1986). Are all psychotherapies equivalent?. American
psychologist, 41(2), 165.