Is Longer-Term Psychodynamic Psychotherapy More Effective than Shorter-Term Therapies? Review and Critique of the Evidence
Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, 04/30/2010
Review Article
Bhar SS et al. – The authors found a miscalculation of the effect sizes used to make key comparisons. Claims for the effectiveness of LTPP depended on a set of small, underpowered studies that were highly heterogeneous in terms of patients treated, interventions, comparison–control groups, and outcomes. LTPP was compared to 12 types of comparison–controls, including control groups that did not involve any psychotherapy, short–term psychodynamic psychotherapy, and unvalidated treatments. Additionally, the studies failed to protect against threats to bias, and had poor internal validity.
