PSY 1102 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Spontaneous Remission, Systematic Desensitization, Meta-Analysis

• School: University of Ottawa
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSY 1102
• Professor: Rosalinde Klempan

Document Summary

Not as effective if client requires direct therapy. Help of another person: rate of spontaneous remission is 30-60% depending on nature of disorder. Success in psychotherapy: if rate of success greater than rate of spontaneous remission (baseline rate) then can conclude success. How to measure baseline/spontaneous remission rate: use wait-list controls. How do we measure improvement: outcome measures are used. E. g. mood measures for affective problems or behavior measures. A procedure to statistically combine the results of many studies. A 1980 meta-analysis combined 475 studies: results. Across various therapy types with various outcome measures. Average psychotherapy patient showed greater improvement than 80% of the untreated group. Little difference in effectiveness can be shown between therapies. Certain therapies may be more well-suited for certain types of problems: e. g. systematic desensitization to treat phobias and fears, e. g. psychodynamic therapy for emotional/interpersonal problems. Effectiveness of many therapies may be due to common factors across all therapies.