Blog

The Psychotherapy Practice Research Network (PPRNet) blog began in 2013 in response to psychotherapy clinicians, researchers, and educators who expressed interest in receiving regular information about current practice-oriented psychotherapy research. It offers a monthly summary of two or three published psychotherapy research articles. Each summary is authored by Dr. Tasca and highlights practice implications of selected articles. Past blogs are available in the archives. This content is only available in English.

April 2018

CBT or Generic Counselling for Treating Depression

Pybis, J., Saxon, D., Hill, A., & Barkham, M. (2017). The comparative effectiveness and efficiency of cognitive behaviour therapy and generic counselling in the treatment of depression: Evidence from the 2nd UK National Audit of psychological therapies. BMC Psychiatry, 17, 215. DOI 10.1186/s12888-017-1370-7

Over a decade ago the United Kingdom (UK) invested large sums of public dollars to fund the Increasing Access to Psychotherapy (IAPT) program. In IAPT, most patients receive cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) as first-line treatment for depression or anxiety, and may receive generic counseling as second line treatment. One of the admirable aspects of IAPT is that the program consistently assesses outcomes, makes its data available for analyses, and publishes yearly reports on their outcomes. In this very large study, Pybis and colleagues assess whether CBT and generic counseling have different outcomes for patients with depression or anxiety. Over 33,000 patients who received treatment at one of 103 sites were in the study. Most patients (about 23,000) receiving CBT, and the others (about 10,000) receiving generic counseling. Two-thirds of the patients were female, most (84%) were white British, and the mean age was 41 (SD = 13.86). CBT focused on changing negative thoughts and behaviors in order to improve depressive symptoms. Generic counselling was harder to define, though the authors described these therapists as practicing in an integrative manner by bringing skills from training in different forms of psychotherapy. Generic counseling therapists did not focus on giving advice or opinions, but rather on helping clients understand themselves better. Pre- to post-treatment effect sizes for CBT (0.94 [0.92, 0.95]) and generic counseling (0.95 [0.92, 0.98]) were equivalent for depression outcomes. In CBT 50.4% of patients reliably improved, whereas 49.6% reliably improved if they received generic counseling. The average number of sessions attended by patients in the two treatments (CBT = 8.9 [6.34]; counseling = 7.5 [5.54]) were also equivalent. However, there were significant site effects. That is, a moderate and significant amount of patient outcomes (15%) could be accounted for by the site at which they received treatment (i.e., some sites or clinics had better outcomes than others).

Practice Implications

Generic counseling as provided in the IAPT in the UK was as effective as structured CBT for reducing symptoms of depression. However, almost half of patients did not improve in either treatment. Generic counseling was likely a label used to describe integrative psychotherapy that followed principles from a variety of psychotherapies that were based on psychological principles. There were much larger site/clinic effects than treatment modality effects, so that clients in some clinics had better than clients who received treatment in other clinics. This is consistent with research on therapist effects that show that some therapists are more effective than others, regardless of their orientation. This research suggests that training therapists to be more effective by improving their facilitative interpersonal skills may yield better outcomes for clients.

March 2018

Therapeutic Alliance Predicts Client Outcomes in CBT

Cameron, S. K., Rodgers, J., & Dagnan, D. (2018). The relationship between the therapeutic alliance and clinical outcomes in cognitive behaviour therapy for adults with depression: A meta‐analytic review. Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, DOI: 10.1002/cpp.2180.

The therapeutic alliance refers to the collaborative agreement between therapist and client on the tasks of therapy (homework, treatment approach, intervention style) and goals of therapy (to reduce depressive symptoms, to improve interpersonal relationships, to cope better with stress), plus the emotional bond between therapist and client. The alliance is part of a larger concept of therapeutic relationship that also includes the real relationship between client and therapist and the transference relationship (maladaptive relational patterns in the client based on a history of relationships with parental figures). The alliance is thought to be a common factor across different therapeutic orientations, including cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), time-limited psychodynamic psychotherapy (TLPP), and interpersonal psychotherapy (IPT). In fact, the alliance is known to have a moderate and robust relationship to client outcomes regardless of who rates the alliance (therapist, client, observer), which measure is used, and when in therapy the alliance is rated (early, middle, late). Although Beck emphasized the alliance as a key therapeutic principle in CBT, some CBT writers argue that the alliance is not so important. In this study, Cameron and colleagues conducted a meta analysis of 13 randomized controlled trials that assessed the relationship between therapeutic alliance and CBT outcomes for depression in adult clients. The overall mean correlation between therapeutic alliance and outcome was r = 0.26 (95% CI [.19–.32]), which indicates a moderate and significant relationship. This is very close to the value found in a larger meta analysis of over 200 alliance – outcome studies.

Practice Implications

The study demonstrates the importance of the therapeutic alliance to client outcomes in CBT. The association was at similar levels to those found in other types of therapy. Therapists conducting CBT should attend to building and maintaining an alliance, which provides a context to facilitate CBT interventions. If a client is not completing homework for example, it is likely that there is a lack of agreement on tasks of therapy, and this part of the alliance may need to be renegotiated. Therapists may also benefit from routinely assessing the alliance in therapy with their clients on a session by session basis using short and easy to use measures. Reviewing these scales regularly can alert a therapist to potential problems in the alliance and the need to repair any tensions or ruptures.
Effects of Computerized CBT May be Overestimated

So, M., Yamaguchi, S., Hashimoto, S., Sado, M., Furukawa, T.A., & McCrone, P. (2013). Is computerised CBT really helpful for adult depression?-A meta-analytic re-evaluation of CCBT for adult depression in terms of clinical implementation and methodological validity. BMC Psychiatry, 13, 113.

Depression is a major cause of disability in the world, and so efforts to improve access to its treatment have been ongoing for several decades. In particular, many researchers and clinicians propose cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) as an effective treatment with a good evidence-base. There have been many clinical trials showing the efficacy of CBT. In recent years, there have also been attempts to computerize CBT (CCBT) as a self help intervention in order to increase its accessibility for those with depression, and perhaps also to improve its cost effectiveness. In fact, the Increasing Accessibility to Psychotherapy (IAPT) program in the UK provides CCBT as the most common first treatment for depression. However there remain questions about the longer term effectiveness of CCBT to reduce symptoms of depression, its potentially high patient dropout rate (a negative outcome), and its effects on quality of life of those burdened by depression. In this meta analysis, the largest of its kind, So and colleagues assess these issues with regard to CCBT. They reviewed 14 direct comparison randomized controlled trials that provided 16 comparisons of CCBT versus a control condition (wait list or treatment as usual) for adults with depression. At post-treatment, CCBT was more effective than controls in reducing depression −0.48 [95% CI −0.63 to −0.33]. However, at follow up (up to 6 months), the effects of CCBT disappeared −0.05 [95% CI −0.19 to 0.09]. Also improvement in functioning and quality of life were not significantly different between CCBT and control conditions, −0.05 [95% CI −0.31 to 0.22]. The rate of drop out from CCBT (32%) was almost double that of control conditions (17%), RR = 1.68 [95% CI 1.31 to 2.16]. There was also evidence of publication bias (i.e., a tendency for some researchers not to publish non-significant findings), so that the positive post-treatment results in favour of CCBT might be inflated.

Practice Implications

Although CCBT may be touted as a way to increase access to treatment for depression, this meta analysis indicates some concerns about the widespread implementation of CCBT. The effects of CCBT appear to be limited to a short-term reduction of depressive symptoms that may not be sustained in the longer run. There was no appreciable impact of CCBT on quality of life relative to controls, and so CCBT may have a limited impact on the burden of depression. Most troubling was a high drop out rate of 32%. Drop out from CCBT in the IAPT program in the UK is about 50%, and this may be indicative of the actual drop out rate in real world practice.

November 2017

Psychotherapy for Depression Also Reduces Interpersonal Problems

McFarquhar, T., Luyten, P., & Fonagy, P. (2018). Changes in interpersonal problems in the psychotherapeutic treatment of depression as measured by the Inventory of Interpersonal Problems: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Journal of Affective Disorders, 226, 108-123.

Interpersonal problems are commonly reported by depressed people. Interpersonal problems are seen by many as both a cause of depressive symptoms and as a result of depression. Depression may be the result of lacking basic human needs like social supports, stable relationships, and intimacy. One of the most important ways of assessing interpersonal problems is with the Inventory of Interpersonal Problems (IIP). The IIP is based on a circumplex model of two independent dimensions: affiliation (friendliness vs hostility) and status (dominance vs submissiveness). Greater problems in any of these domains or any combination of these domains may lead to interpersonal distress that result in or are the result of depression. Many psychotherapies target interpersonal problems in their treatment of depression: Interpersonal Psychotherapy (IPT), Short Term Dynamic Psychotherapy (STDP), and Emotion Focused Therapy (EFT). In this meta-analysis, McFarquhar and colleagues evaluated whether psychotherapy for depression is related to changes in interpersonal distress and whether specific types of interpersonal problems at baseline are related to treatment outcomes for depression at post-treatment. The authors looked at both randomized and non-randomized trials of psychotherapy for adults with depression. They found 10 studies that met inclusion criteria, six of which were randomized controlled trials. Psychotherapy for depression resulted large positive changes in interpersonal problems (overall pre- to post-treatment ES g=0.74, 95% CI=0.56–0.93). Unfortunately, there were too few studies (k = 3) that met meta-analytic criteria to do an analysis of pre-treatment interpersonal distress as a predictor of depression outcomes. However, of 8 studies that looked at this question, six showed that higher interpersonal distress was associated with poorer outcomes for depression at post-treatment.

Practice Implications

Given that interpersonal problems both cause and are caused by depressive symptoms, targeting relationship difficulties (lack of social support, conflict in relationships, low intimacy, relationship avoidance) in psychotherapy should be a priority. This meta-analysis showed that interpersonal distress improves after psychotherapy for depression, and there was some evidence that higher interpersonal problems at the outset may reduce the effects of the therapy for depressive symptoms.

September 2017

Can a Unified Protocol Bring Together Diverse Evidence-Based Treatments?

Barlow, D.H., Farchione, T., Bullis, J.R., Gallagher, M.W., Murray-Latin, H.,… Cassiello-Robbins, C. (2017). The unified protocol for transdiagnostic treatment of emotional disorders compared with diagnosis-specific protocols for anxiety disorders: A randomized clinical trial. JAMA Psychiatry. doi:10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2017.2164.

One barrier to disseminating and implementing evidence-based treatments is that therapists have to learn to competently apply many different manualized protocols – at least one for each disorder that they treat (depression, anxiety disorders, eating disorders, and others). Barlow and colleagues argue that it is possible to unify many of these protocols under one umbrella, and so they created a unified protocol for this purpose. The unified protocol is an emotion-focused, cognitive-behavioral intervention that targets temperamental characteristics, particularly neuroticism and emotion dysregulation that underly anxiety, depressive, and related disorders. The unified protocol consists of motivational enhancement followed by 5 treatment modules: (1) mindful emotion awareness, (2) cognitive flexibility, (3) identifying and preventing patterns of emotion avoidance, (4) increasing awareness and tolerance of emotion related physical sensations, and (5) emotion-focused exposure. In this trial, 223 participants with an anxiety disorder (generalized anxiety, obsessive compulsive, panic disorder, or social anxiety disorder) were randomly assigned to the unified protocol, or to the evidence-based treatment specific to the disorder, or to a no-treatment wait-list condition. The sample size was large enough to test a hypothesis of equivalent findings between the two treatment conditions. The differences in changes to symptoms between the unified protocol and the specific interventions for each disorder were small and non-significant at post-treatment and at the follow-up assessments. The treatment conditions were significantly more effective than the wait-list control condition. There were no differences between the treatments in drop-out rates or treatment adherence.

Practice Implications

It may be possible for therapists to competently learn to apply a single unified evidence-based treatment for a variety of anxiety disorders that has equivalent outcomes to currently recognized but separate treatment approaches. The unified protocol suggests that the temperamental factors underlying anxiety disorders (emotion dysregulation, emotion avoidance, cognitive inflexibility) can be targeted to treat a wide-range of emotional disorders.

August 2017

Interventions for PTSD for Survivors of Mass Violence

Morina, N., Malek, M., Nickerson, A., & Bryant, R.A. (2017). Meta-analysis of interventions for posttraumatic stress disorder and depression in adult survivors of mass violence in low- and middle-income countries. Depression and Anxiety, DOI: 10.1002/da.22618

There is a high prevalence of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in countries that have experienced civil war and mass violence, and given the number of open conflict, the prevalence is likely increasing. Most people affected are from low- to middle-income countries. Both PTSD and depression confer a large personal, social, health, and economic burden especially when untreated. Research in Western countries show that psychological treatment of PTSD is effective, but there are practical barriers to transporting and adapting these interventions to low- and middle-income countries. In this meta-analysis, Morina and colleagues do a systematic review of psychological interventions for PTSD conducted of adult survivors of war in low- and middle-income countries. Treatments included trauma-focused cognitive-behavioral therapy, interpersonal psychotherapy, eye movement desensitization and reprocessing and several others. In total, 2,124 treated participants and 934 participants in the waitlist condition were included in the analyses. In the 18 trials that were included, symptoms of PTSD and depression were measured. The average drop-out rate was 11.5%. Across all active interventions (k = 16), a large pre–post effect size was found, g = 1.29; 95% CI = [0.99; 1.59] for PTSD. The average between-group effect size comparing active treatments versus control conditions at post-treatment was small to medium, g = 0.39; 95% CI = [0.249; 0.55], and at follow-up was large, g = 0.93; 95% CI = [0.56; 1.31], k = 10. Pre-post effect size for depression was equally large g = 1.28; 95% CI = [0.96; 1.61]. The effect size comparing active treatments versus control conditions for depression at posttreatment (k = 11) was large, g = 0.86; 95% CI = [0.54; 1.18], and at follow-up was medium to large, g = 0.90; 95% CI = [0.49; 1.33], k = 5.

Practice Implications

Evidence-based psychological treatments developed in high-income countries are also effective in reducing symptoms of PTSD and depression in adults who experienced war-time conditions in low- and middle-income countries. Although not directly tested, the evidence suggests that different evidence-based treatments were equally effective. Even if drop-out rates were low, practical barriers still existed, including the number of sessions of these treatments (average was 10 sessions), the need for trained personnel, and the need for face to face meetings. The authors suggested that collaborative care models should be evaluated and tested which aim to enhance the reach of efficacious treatments within primary care to optimize the number of patients who can benefit from these interventions.

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April 2018

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March 2018

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November 2017

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September 2017

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August 2017

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Psychotherapy Practice Research Network (PPRNet)