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Hollon, S.D. & Beck, A.T. (2013). Cognitive and cognitive-behavioral therapies. In M.E. Lambert (Ed.), Bergin and Garfield’s Handbook of Psychotherapy and Behavior Change, 6th Edition (pp. 393-442). New York: Wiley.

Cognitive (CT) and cognitive behavioural therapies (CBT) are among the most empirically supported and widely practiced psychological interventions. CT emphasizes the role of meaning in their models of depression and CT interventions emphasise testing the accuracy of beliefs. More behavioural approaches like CBT see change in terms of classical or operant conditioning of behaviours, in which cognitive strategies are incorporated to facilitate behavioural change. In this section of their chapter, Hollon and Beck review research on CT for depression. Depression is the single most prevalent mental disorder and is a leading cause of disability in the world (see this month’s blog entry on the global burden of depression). Most patients have multiple episodes of depression (i.e., recurrent) and about 25% have episodes that last for 2 years or more (i.e., chronic). CT posits that depressed individuals have negative automatic thoughts that are organized into depressogenic automatic beliefs (or underlying assumptions) that put them at risk for relapse. Automatic beliefs can be organized in latent (or unconscious) schemas often laid down in childhood and activated by later stress that influence the way information is organized. In CT patients are taught to evaluate their beliefs (also called empirical disconfirmation), conduct “experiments” to test their accuracy and to modify core beliefs and reduce maladaptive interpersonal behaviours. Most reviews show that CT for depression is superior to no treatment (with large effects) and at least as effective as alternative psychological or pharmacological interventions. Most patients show a good response to CT with about one third showing complete remission. Although some practice guidelines have concluded that medications are preferred to CBT (or any psychotherapy) for severe depression, more recent meta analyses show that CT is as efficacious as medications and is likely better in the long term. CT also has an enduring effect that protects clients against symptoms returning. Medications, on the other hand suppress depressive symptoms only as long as the patient continues to take the treatment, but medications do not reduce underlying risk. As a result, relapse rates for medication treatment of depression are much higher than for CT. These findings suggest that patients who receive CT learn something that reduces risk for recurrence, which is the single biggest advantage that CT has over medications. Further, CT is free from problematic side effects that may occur with medications.

Practice Implications

CT and CBT are the most tested psychological treatments for depression and the evidence indicates that many patients benefit. CT and CBT are as effective as medications for reducing acute distress related to depression, and even for those with more severe depression when implemented by experienced therapists. CT has an enduring effect not found in medications, may also help prevent future episodes of depression, and may prevent relapse after medications are discontinued.

McAleavey, A.A., Castonguay, L.G., & Goldfried, M.R. (2014). Clinical experiences in conducting cognitive-behavioral therapy for social phobia. Behavior Therapy, 45, 21-35.

It might come as a surprise to some that social phobia (also called social anxiety disorder) is the most commonly diagnosed anxiety disorder, with a lifetime prevalence of about 12%. Symptoms include negative self-view, fear of embarrassment or criticism, and fear and/or avoidance of social situations. Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is an effective treatment for social phobia with effects as large as pharmacotherapies. Despite this, there are several potential barriers to implementing CBT for social phobia in clinical practice. CBT involves exposure to feared situations (in vivo or simulated), identifying and altering maladaptive thoughts during exposure, producing testable hypotheses, and identifying cognitive errors.  CBT is not uniformly effective for all patients with social phobia, exposure techniques are linked to dropping out and failure to initiate treatment, and there can be an increase in missed sessions and non-completion of homework related to avoidance. In this study, McAleavy and colleagues surveyed 276 psychotherapists who provided CBT for social phobia to assess problems or barriers clinicians encountered when applying CBT in practice. Possible barriers listed in the survey were derived from extensive interviews with experts who developed and researched CBT interventions for anxiety disorders. Survey respondents were mostly Ph.D. level clinical psychologists (59%), women (61%), who practiced in outpatient clinics or private practice, and had on average 12 years of post-degree experience. Many therapists reported using behavioral interventions, including developing a fear/avoidance hierarchy, in-session exposures, focusing on behavior in social situations, and specifically focusing on behavioral avoidance. Most also used cognitive homework (i.e., interventions focused on exploring or altering attributions or cognitions).  The most frequent therapist endorsed barriers to implementing CBT for social phobia included: patient symptoms (i.e., severity, chronicity, and poor social skills); other patient characteristics (i.e., resistance to directiveness of treatment, inability to work independently between sessions, avoidant personality disorder, limited premorbid functioning, poor interpersonal skills, depressed mood); patient expectations (i.e., that therapist will do all the work; pessimism regarding therapy); patient specific beliefs (i.e., belief that fears are realistic, or that social anxiety is part of their personality); patient motivation (i.e., premature termination, attribution that gains are due to medications); and patient social system (i.e., social system endorses dependency, social isolation). A minority of CBT therapists endorsed a weak therapeutic alliance or aspects of the CBT intervention itself as posing a barrier.

Practice Implications

CBT therapists identified a number of barriers, mainly patient related, that might impede the implementation of CBT for social phobia. Given these barriers the authors suggested that therapists: (1) consider more intense, longer, or more specific treatments for more severe cases; (2) incorporate assessment of patient severity to guide decisions; (3) consider tailoring the level of treatment directiveness based on patient characteristics – i.e., more resistant patients may require a less directive approach and more control over the type and pace of interventions; (4) prepare patients on what to expect in the treatment before therapy begins; (5) find a balance between validating/accepting patients’ problematic beliefs that their fears might be realistic with encouragement to change; (6) add motivational interviewing for patients who are less motivated; (6) complete a thorough functional analysis of patients’ social systems at the start of therapy. McAleavey and colleagues noted that while therapeutic alliance difficulties was an infrequently endorsed barrier by therapists, such difficulties remain clinically important, especially in light of findings that indicate that negative reactions to patients are under-reported by therapists. Developing and maintaining a good alliance remains a key aspect of CBT for panic disorder.

Handbook of Psychotherapy and Behavior Change: Starting in March 2013 I will review one chapter a month from the Handbook of Psychotherapy and Behavior Change in addition to reviewing psychotherapy research articles. Book chapters have more restrictive copy right rules than journal articles, so I will not provide author email addresses for these chapters. If you are interested, the Handbook table of content and sections of the book can be read on Google Books.

Crits-Christoph, P., Connolly Gibbons, M.B., & Mukherjee, D. (2013). Psychotherapy process-outcome research. In M.E. Lambert (Ed.), Bergin and Garfield’s Handbook of Psychotherapy and Behavior Change, 6^th Edition (pp. 298-340). New York: Wiley.

In this section of their chapter in the Handbook, Crits-Christoph and colleagues (2013) review research on: (1) specific techniques of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), and (2) change mechanisms of CBT for depression. Research on techniques and mechanisms of change tests the specific or unique effects of a treatment and the rationale for its use. The first issue addresses whether therapist adherence and competence in using CBT techniques produce desired outcomes in patients. CBT techniques include: following an agenda, reviewing homework, asking about specific beliefs, practicing rational responses with patients, and asking patients to keep thought records. Crits-Christoph and colleagues (2013) report that the research findings on the association between using specific CBT techniques and depression outcomes are mixed. The strongest evidence is for concrete techniques such as setting agendas, reviewing homework, and practicing rational responses. However the number of studies that control for prior symptom change and other factors like therapeutic alliance is small, and so the evidence for the specific effects of CBT techniques remains meagre. The second issue addresses whether targeting depressogenic cognitions with CBT results in positive outcomes. Generally, CBT theory argues that the mechanisms by which CBT works is to focus on core depressogenic schemas (i.e., less consciously long held negative beliefs about the self), conscious negative automatic thoughts, and dysfunctional attitudes (i.e., patterns of automatic thoughts) that lead to or maintain depression. Theoretically, addressing these cognitions in CBT should reduce depressive symptoms. Overall, the research shows that both CBT and medication treatment for depression reduce self-reported negative thinking; that is, the effects on negative thinking were not specific to CBT. Few studies show that changes in cognitions precede changes in depressive symptoms, which is a key CBT tenet. The most promising findings suggest that learning compensatory skills (i.e., finding alternative explanations for negative events and thoughts, and problems solving) may be part of the mechanism by which CBT works, but again this mechanism may not be specific to CBT.

Practice Implications

CBT is an effective treatment for depression. CBT theory suggests that the reason for its effectiveness is the use of specific techniques (i.e., reviewing homework, asking for specific beliefs, practicing rational responses with patients, and asking patients to keep thought records) that target the purported causes of depression (i.e., depressogenic shemas, negative thoughts, and dysfunctional attitudes). Currently there is little research evidence that supports the specificity of CBT techniques or that supports the notion that specific changes in cognitions as a result of CBT reduce depression. Nevertheless, in general, concrete techniques (i.e., setting agendas, reviewing homework, and practicing rational responses) are clinically useful for depressed patients, as is learning compensatory skills like problem solving.

Cuijpers, P., Huibers, M., Ebert, D.D., Koole, S.L., & Andersson, G. (2013). How much psychotherapy is needed to treat depression? A metaregression analysis. Journal of Affective Disorders, 147, 1-13.

The question of the number of psychotherapy sessions and of frequency sessions (i.e., number of sessions per week) that are optimal for good outcomes could have implications for how psychotherapy is practiced and how it is reimbursed. In my August 2013 PPRNet Blog, I reported on research that indicated half of patients recover after 21 sessions of psychotherapy. However, that also means that half do not recover in that number of sessions. Many of those who do not recover require another 29 sessions to recover. Research and practice in psychotherapy is largely based on a “one-session-per-week” model. Some researchers, however, have found that an increase in the frequency sessions per week could improve or speed up outcomes. Cuijpers and colleagues (2013) did a meta-regression to assess these questions for short-term psychotherapies for depression. (Meta-regression is a type of meta-analysis in which predictors from many studies are aggregated and their averaged effects on the aggregated outcome are assessed. This produces much more reliable findings than are possible from a single study.) The authors assessed predictors such as the number and frequency of sessions, and they looked at symptom outcomes for depression. The authors found 70 controlled studies that included 5403 patients. More than two-thirds of the studies included CBT as the psychotherapy. Average length of treatment was 11 sessions, and the maximum number of sessions was 24. The number of sessions across studies ranged from .44 to 2 per week, and the average per week was 1. The overall effect size for the treatment was medium sized (g = .59), though the effect became smaller (g = .40) when publication bias was corrected. (Publication bias refers to the likelihood that some less favorable studies or results were not published thus creating an overestimation of the effect of the treatment. See my May 2013 PPRNet Blog). Cuijper and colleagues’ meta-regression showed a small but significant association between greater number of sessions and outcomes for depression; but more importantly, a greater number of sessions per week had a considerably larger positive influence on the effects of psychotherapy for depression.

Practice Implications

The findings from Cuijpers and colleagues (2013) meta-regression are particularly relevant to time limited treatment of depression with CBT. The total number of sessions was less important than the frequency of sessions per week. The results suggest that increasing the intensity or frequency of CBT sessions per week might result in a more efficient therapy and faster relief for patients with depression.

Author email: p.cuijpers@vu.nl

Bell, E. C., Marcus, D. K., & Goodlad, J. K. (2013). Are the parts as good as the whole? A meta-analysis of component treatment studies. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 81, 722-736.

Component studies (i.e., dismantling treatments or adding to existing treatments) may provide a method for identifying whether specific active ingredients in psychotherapy contribute to client outcomes. In a dismantling design, at least one element of the treatment is removed and the full treatment is compared to this dismantled version. In additive designs, an additional component is added to an existing treatment to examine whether the addition improves client outcomes. If the dismantled or added component is an active ingredient, then the condition with fewer components should yield less improvement. Among other things, results from dismantling or additive design studies can help clinicians make decisions about which components of treatments to add or remove with some clients who are not responding. For example, Jacobson and colleagues (1996) conducted a dismantling study of cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) for depression. They compared: (1) the full package of CBT, (2) behavioral activation (BA) plus CBT modification of automatic thoughts, and (3) BA alone. This study failed to find differences among the three treatment conditions. These findings were interpreted to indicate that BA was as effective as CBT, and there followed an increased interest in behavioral treatments for depression. However, relying on a single study to influence practice is risky because single studies are often statistically underpowered and their results are not as reliable as the collective body of research. One way to evaluate the collective research is by meta analysis, which allows one to assess an overall effect size in the available literature (see my November, 2013 blog on why clinicians should rely on meta analyses). In their meta analysis, Bell and colleagues (2013) collected 66 component studies from 1980 to 2010. For the dismantling studies, there were no significant differences between the full treatments and the dismantled treatments. For the additive studies, the treatment with the added component yielded a small but significant effect at treatment completion and at follow-up. These effects were only found for the specific problems that were targeted by the treatment. Effects were smaller and non-non-significant for other outcomes such as quality of life.

Practice Implications

Psychotherapists are sometimes faced with a decision about whether to supplement current treatments with an added component, or whether to remove a component that may not be helping. Adding components to existing treatments leads to modestly improved outcomes at least with regard to targeted symptoms. Removing components appears not to have an impact on outcomes. The findings of Bell and colleagues’ (2013) meta analysis suggest that specific components or active ingredients of current treatments’ have a significant but small effect on outcomes. Some writers, such as Wampold, have argued that the small effects of specific components highlight the greater importance of common factors in psychotherapy (i.e., therapeutic alliance, client expectations, therapist empathy, etc.). This may be especially the case when it comes to improving a patient’s quality of life.

Author email: david.marcus@wsu.edu

Driessen, E., Van, H.L., Don, F.J., Peen, J., Kool, S. ....Dekker, J.J. (2013). The efficacy of cognitive-behavioral therapy and psychodynamic therapy in the outpatient treatment of major depression: A randomized clinical trial. American Journal of Psychiatry, 170, 1041-1050.

Psychotherapy is one of the most widely used treatments for major depression. Unfortunately there is no commercial entity like the pharmaceutical industry to support research and development of psychotherapy. As a result, researchers have limited ability to conduct larger-scale studies of comparative treatment effectiveness, of which there are only a handful. Although psychodynamic therapy (PDT) has been used to treat depressed patients for decades, randomized controlled trials of its efficacy are relatively infrequent. A concurrent problem with outcome research in psychotherapy is that sample sizes tend to be too small to actually test if two treatments are equivalent in what is called an “equivalency trial”. Without large samples, all one can conclude is that two treatments are “not significantly different” (a statistical note: an equivalency trial is planned from the outset to have a large enough sample to test the hypothesis that, with 95% certainty, the effect of one treatment falls within a narrow, predetermined margin of the effect of another treatment). The study by Driessen and colleagues was conducted in several sites in Amsterdam, in which 341 patients seeking outpatient psychotherapy for depression in psychiatric clinics were randomized to PDT or cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT). This is largest trial ever of PDT. Participants received 16 weeks of therapy and then were followed up for 1 year. About 40% of patients started with severe depression. Therapists were 93 experienced and well trained therapists who provided one of the two treatments. The main outcome was remission from depression, defined by achieving a low score on a validated observer rating scale. Post treatment remission rates were 21% for CBT and 24% for PDT, indicating that the treatments were equivalent.

Practice Implications

Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) and short-term PDT provided similar outcomes for patients with a major depressive episode, but remission rates at the end of treatment were low for both treatments. Lower remission rates were likely due to the greater level of severity for these patients compared to those seen in primary care settings. The results highlight that even the best available psychological (and pharmacological) treatments yield modest outcomes for more severely depressed patients. Nevertheless, this rare equivalency trial found that both CBT and PDT were equivalent in terms of outcomes for these patients.

Author email: e.driessen@vu.nl