Understanding Psychology (10th Ed)

family therapy
An approach that 
focuses on the family and its dynamics.
In group therapy, people with psychological diffi
culties meet with a 
therapist to discuss their problems.
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560 Chapter 
16 
Treatment of Psychological Disorders
getting to sleep, and—this is what really bothers him—has begun to think that peo-
ple are ganging up on him, talking about him behind his back. It seems that no one 
really cares about or understands him or makes any effort to see why he’s become 
so miserable. 
Ben knows that he ought to get some kind of help, but he is not sure where to 
turn. He is fairly skeptical of psychologists and thinks that a lot of what they say 
is just mumbo-jumbo, but he’s willing to put his doubts aside and try anything to 
feel better. He also knows there are many different types of therapy, and he doesn’t 
have a clue about which would be best for him. He turns to you for advice because 
he knows you are taking a psychology course. He asks, “Which kind of therapy 
works best?” 
IS THERAPY EFFECTIVE? 
This question requires a complex response. In fact, identifying the single most appro-
priate form of treatment is a controversial and still unresolved task for psychologists 
specializing in psychological disorders. In fact, even before considering whether one 
form of therapy works better than another, we need to determine whether therapy 
in any form effectively alleviates psychological disturbances. 
Until the 1950s, most people simply assumed that therapy was effective. But in 
1952 psychologist Hans Eysenck published an infl uential study challenging that 
assumption. He claimed that people who received psychodynamic treatment and 
related therapies were no better off at the end of treatment than were people who 
were placed on a waiting list for treatment but never received it. Eysenck concluded 
that people would go into  spontaneous remission,  recovery without treatment, if 
they were simply left alone—certainly a cheaper and simpler process. 
Although other psychologists quickly challenged Eysenck’s conclusions, his 
review stimulated a continuing stream of better controlled, more carefully crafted 
studies on the effectiveness of psychotherapy. Today most psychologists agree: Ther-
apy does work. Several comprehensive reviews indicate that therapy brings about 
greater improvement than no treatment at all, with the rate of spontaneous remis-
sion being fairly low. In most cases, then, the symptoms of abnormal behavior do 
not go away by themselves if left untreated—although the issue continues to be 
hotly debated (Seligman, 1996; Westen, Novotny, & Thompson-Brenner, 2004; Lutz 
et al., 2006).