Ellie Gant summarises a meta-analysis that asks: Was Eysenck right after all? A reassessment of the effects of psychotherapy for adult depression. The paper suggests that we seriously overestimate the benefits of psychotherapy by including biased trials in meta-analyses, and that there’s insufficient reliable research to be certain about the effectiveness of problem-solving therapy, interpersonal psychotherapy and behavioural activation.
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Keith Laws explores a recent meta-analysis of third wave CBT for psychosis, which suggests we need better evidence about the safety and efficacy of mindfulness, acceptance-based therapy, compassion-focused therapy and other third wave approaches.
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Rachel Upthegrove reviews a new systematic review and meta-analysis of psychological and psychosocial interventions for negative symptoms in psychosis.
This is the third in a new series of Mental Elf blogs produced in partnership with the British Journal of Psychiatry.
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A guest post from Caroline Fiennes, Director of Giving Evidence, who has today published a new report that explores in the ways in which UK mental health charities use evidence in the development of their services.
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Guy Goodwin reviews a new paper in the Lancet Psychiatry by Jauhar, McKenna and Laws, that calls into question the trustworthiness of the NICE bipolar disorder guidance.
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Alan Underwood considers a new systematic review and meta analysis, which highlights the lack of evidence for faith based CBT in treating people with depression or anxiety disorders.
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This recent meta-analysis confirms that psychotherapy has a moderate to high effect on depression in older adults. However, a note of caution is sounded because of publication bias and the low quality of several of the included studies.
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I had actually heard about this Danish study, published recently by Poulsen et al. (2014) in the American Journal of Psychiatry, before it landed in my inbox. The findings are interesting because they highlight the debate surrounding the comparative efficacy of psychological treatments. What is most striking though, is how the study itself challenges the [read the full story…]
Depression is common in primary care and associated with a substantial personal, social and societal burden. There is considerable ongoing controversy regarding whether antidepressant pharmacotherapy works and, in particular, for whom. One widely-prescribed antidepressant is fluoxetine (Prozac), an antidepressant of the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRI) class. Although a number of more recent antidepressants are [read the full story…]
