ABSTRACT
Cognitive behaviour therapy has shown great promise in the treatment of many common psychological disorders and predominates in the list of evidence-based treatments [EBTs Chambless and Ollendick (2001)], but other EBTs include interpersonal therapy and brief psychodynamic therapy for depression, as well as couples therapy. The effi cacy of a treatment is measured by the effect size, which is the mean score of clients at the end of treatment subtracted from the mean score of a comparison condition (usually a waiting list control condition), divided by the pooled standard deviation (a measure of the spread of the results). Butler et al. (2006) conducted a meta-analysis of RCTs of CBT and found large effect sizes for depression, generalised anxiety disorder, panic disorder (with or without agoraphobia), social phobia, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and childhood depressive and anxiety disorders. Marital distress, anger, childhood somatic disorders and chronic pain showed moderate effect sizes. More recently Hofman and Smits (2008) have replicated these fi ndings across the adult anxiety disorders. But translating these results from research contexts to everyday mental health practice has proved diffi cult.
