Prof. Pim Cuijpers: 45 years of research on psychotherapy for depression: Overview of a meta-analytic research domain

Abstract

Since the first randomised trials on psychotherapy for depression were conducted in the 1970s, more than 800 trials have been published on different types of therapy. These therapies have been compared with contol groups, with each other, with medication, and with combined treatments. In this lecture I will give an overview of this body of research, using a meta-analytic database of trials on psychotherapy for depression. I will give an overview of the effects of different types of therapy, therapies for different subtypes of depression, secondary outcome and comorbidities. I will also present for whom the therapies are effective and for whom they are less effective, as well as the associations between the characterictics of the interventions and their effects. Then I will go into the differential effects of psychotherapies, pharmacotherapy and their combination. I will also go into the methodological problems in the field and describe the progress we have made in ‘individual patient data’ meta-analyses aimed at examining predictors and moderators of outcome. I will end with recommendations on how the field can be further strengthened.

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Please contact

Lea L. Lott - Sandkamp
Institut für Psychologie
Lehrstuhl für Biologische Psychologie,
Klinische Psychologie und Psychotherapie

lea.lott@psychologie.uni-freiburg.de