In summary, because of its clear research support, CBT dominates the international guidelines for psychosocial treatments, making it a first-line treatment for many disorders, as noted by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence’s guidelines 2 and American Psychological Association. 3 Therefore, CBT is, indeed, the gold standard in the psychotherapy field, being included in the major clinical guidelines based on its rigorous empirical basis, not for various political reasons, as some colleagues (1) seem to suggest.
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Why cognitive behavioral therapy is the current gold standard of psychotherapy. Front Psychiatry. (2018) 9:4. 10.3389/fpsyt.2018.00004 [ PMC free article] [ PubMed] [ CrossRef] [ Google Scholar]
Thus, if therapy A is the reference treatment and one proves that psychotherapy B is equivalent to A, it does allow psychotherapy B to become a reference treatment for the test of a new psychotherapy C.
If gold standardis defined as best standard we can have in the field, then, indeed, CBT is not the gold standard, and CBT, as a progressive research program, would not even argue for such a status at this moment.
The aim of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy is to help people identify unhelpful beliefs and thought patterns which are often automatic, negative and irrational, and replace them with more positive and helpful ways of thinking (APS, 2015). ...
In summary, because of its clear research support, CBT dominates the international guidelines for psychosocial treatments, making it a first-line treatment for many disorders, as noted by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence's guidelines2 and American Psychological Association.
The main benefit of CBT is that it helps us gain control of our thoughts. Cognitive distortions are common and often happen automatically, without question. Over time, the process of questioning and replacing negative thoughts can transform our thought processes.
What are the key elements of CBT? CBT ultimately aims to teach patients to be their own therapist, by helping them to understand their current ways of thinking and behaving, and by equipping them with the tools to change their maladaptive cognitive and behavioural patterns.
CBT is based on the idea that how we think (cognition), how we feel (emotion) and how we act (behavior) all interact together. Specifically, our thoughts determine our feelings and our behavior. Therefore, negative and unrealistic thoughts can cause us distress and result in problems.
CBT as an Increasingly Popular and Evidence-Based Practice Partly because of its commonsense and clear principles, self-help books based on CBT approaches also have come to dominate the market [3]. Even media articles frequently extol the virtues of this form of psychotherapy.
Research shows that CBT is the most effective form of treatment for those coping with depression and anxiety. CBT alone is 50-75% effective for overcoming depression and anxiety after 5 – 15 modules. Medication alone is effective, however, science still does not understand the long-term effects on the brain and body.
Goals of Cognitive Therapy Include:the promotion of self-awareness and emotional intelligence by teaching clients to “read” their emotions and distinguish healthy from unhealthy feelings.helping clients understand how distorted perceptions and thoughts contribute to painful feelings.More items...
Cognitive behavioral therapy was the first form of psychotherapy tested with the most stringent criteria (e.g., randomized trials and active comparator) of evidence-based framework used in the health field (e.g. , similar for those used in case of pharmacotherapy).
Modern CBT is an umbrella term of empirically supported treatments for clearly defined psychopathologies that are targeted with specific treatment strategies ( 3 ). More recently, CBT has included a more trans-diagnostic/process-based and personalized approach, with the ultimate goal of linking the therapeutic technique to the process and the individual client ( 4 ). Traditionally, clinical trials examining the efficacy of CBT include waitlist control, placebo conditions, treatment as usual/TAU, and other alternative treatments (including psychodynamic therapies and pharmacotherapies).
Traditionally, clinical trials examining the efficacy of CBT include waitlist control, placebo conditions, treatment as usual/TAU, and other alternative treatments (including psychodynamic therapies and pharmacotherapies). Although a number of CBT trials have included weak comparisons (e.g., wait list control conditions), ...
A longer quantitative form of the present viewpoint is under preparation.
If gold standard is defined as best standard we can have in the field, then, indeed, CBT is not the gold standard, and CBT, as a progressive research program, would not even argue for such a status at this moment.
Taking into account the number of publications/studies, academic programs, and/or practicing professionals, cognitive behavioral therapy (C BT) is arguably the gold standard of the psychotherapy field. However, recently, some colleagues have argued for plurality in psychotherapy, questioning the status of CBT as the gold standard in psychotherapy ( 1 ), because many studies are of low quality and/or the comparator conditions are weak (i.e., wait list rather than active comparators), thus challenging CBT’s prominent status among academic programs and practitioners.
Thus, even if the equivalence of PP to CBT was supported, it does not mean that PP gains the same reference status as CBT. Instead, PP should independently pass the same tests as the gold standard to obtain the same status (e.g., several high quality independent clinical trials using placebo or other active comparators).
... Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) is a well-known psychosocial treatment for depression, enabling patients to cope with problems in cognition and behaviour [1]. Its effectiveness has been proven in a range of studies, and it is currently considered to be the gold standard in psychotherapy [2]. CBT relies on two main techniques: Guided Discovery (GD), which encourages patients to target dysfunctional thinking; and Behavioural Activation (BA), which encourages patients to engage in activities that increase one's mastery, i.e., perceived ability to perform the activity [1]. ...
INTRODUCTION Integrated behavioral health is a model of health care that aims to meet the complex health care needs of patients in primary care settings. Collaborative Care (CC) is an evidence-based model incorporating an interdisciplinary team to improve outcomes for behavioral health disorders commonly seen by primary care providers. OBJECTIVE CC was implemented in a nurse-managed health center in a medically underserved community of Chicago with a team of family nurse practitioners, psychiatric mental health nurse practitioners, and a licensed clinical social worker. METHOD Integration of the CC model required restructuring of the patient visit, the care team, and financial operations. Weekly team meetings were held for interdisciplinary case consultation and training for the primary care team by the psychiatric nurse practitioner. The model includes suggested goals of reducing patient scores of validated depression (Patient Health Questionnaire–9) and anxiety (Generalized Anxiety Disorder–7) screening tools to a score less than 5 points or to less than 50% of original score. RESULTS During the initial year of implementation, 166 patients received care under the CC model, with 64 patients currently receiving active care. In this cohort, 22% reached suggested goals for depression and 47% for anxiety. CONCLUSIONS CC has benefits for both patients and providers. Patients receive holistic treatment of both mental and physical health needs and access to psychiatric services for medication initiation and behavioral health modalities when necessary. We observed that the CC model improved collaboration with behavioral health specialists and the competence and confidence of family nurse practitioners.
About 75% of patients prefer psychotherapy over medication.¹ For psychotherapy of mental disorders, several approaches are available such as cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), interpersonal therapy, or psychodynamic therapy. Pointing to the available evidence, CBT is usually considered the gold standard for the psychotherapeutic treatment of many or even most mental disorders.²,3 For example, the American Psychological Association’s Division 12 Task Force on Psychological Interventions currently lists CBT as the only treatment with “strong research support” in almost 80% of all mental disorders included in its listing.
Objective: Interpersonal psychotherapy (IPT) has been developed for the treatment of depression but has been examined for several other mental disorders. A comprehensive meta-analysis of all randomized trials examining the effects of IPT for all mental health problems was conducted. Method: Searches in PubMed, PsycInfo, Embase, and Cochrane were conducted to identify all trials examining IPT for any mental health problem. Results: Ninety studies with 11,434 participants were included. IPT for acute-phase depression had moderate-to-large effects compared with control groups (g=0.60; 95% CI=0.45-0.75). No significant difference was found with other therapies (differential g=0.06) and pharmacotherapy (g=-0.13). Combined treatment was more effective than IPT alone (g=0.24). IPT in subthreshold depression significantly prevented the onset of major depression, and maintenance IPT significantly reduced relapse. IPT had significant effects on eating disorders, but the effects are probably slightly smaller than those of cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) in the acute phase of treatment. In anxiety disorders, IPT had large effects compared with control groups, and there is no evidence that IPT was less effective than CBT. There was risk of bias as defined by the Cochrane Collaboration in the majority of studies. There was little indication that the presence of bias influenced outcome. Conclusions: IPT is effective in the acute treatment of depression and may be effective in the prevention of new depressive disorders and in preventing relapse. IPT may also be effective in the treatment of eating disorders and anxiety disorders and has shown promising effects in some other mental health disorders.
Recent randomized controlled trials (RCTs) suggest that psychodynamic therapy (PDT) may be useful in the treatment of anxiety disorders. This paper presents the most comprehensive meta-analysis to date examining the controlled effects of PDT for anxiety disorders. 14 RCTs totaling 1,073 patients were included. PDT was found to be significantly more effective than control conditions (g = 0.64). PDT did not differ significantly from alternative treatments at post-treatment (g = 0.02), follow-up (FU) up to a year (g = − 0.11), and FU past a year (g = − 0.26). Medium-to-high levels of heterogeneity were detected, indicating significant differences between studies. Nevertheless, our findings remained unchanged when heterogeneity outliers were removed (termination g = − 0.06/short FU g = − 0.01/long FU g = − 0.10). Power analyses indicated that large or medium effect size differences between PDT and other active treatments could be detected even with high heterogeneity. Exploratory moderator analyses found few significant predictors of effect (e.g., relative risk of dropout). No differences were found examining remission rates or relative risk of dropout. Overall, PDT was shown to be as efficacious as other active treatments that have been studied for anxiety disorders.
CBT. However, no dierence to CB T can be invoked as support
In this paper, we argue that CBT is the gold-standard psychological treatment—as the best standard we have in the field currently available—for the following reasons: (1) CBT is the most researched form of psychotherapy. (2) No other form of psychotherapy has been shown to be systematically superior to CBT; if there are systematic differences between psychotherapies, they typically favor CBT. (3) Moreover, the CBT theoretical models/mechanisms of change have been the most researched and are in line with the current mainstream paradigms of human mind and behavior (e.g., information processing). At the same time, there is clearly room for further improvement, both in terms of CBT’s efficacy/effectiveness and its underlying theories/mechanisms of change. We further argue for an integrated scientific psychotherapy, with CBT serving as the foundational platform for integration.