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The Investigation of the Effects of Psychiatric Treatment^*

Psychology Department, Institute of Psychiatry, London

^* Most of the work reported in this paper was done on the basis of a grant by the Medical Research Council of Great Britain. The work was carried out under the supervision of Dr. M. B. Shapiro,who contributed many of the ideas and formulations appearing in this paper. Acknowledgments are due to Dr. F. Post for his criticisms of the paper.

ABSTRACT

This paper reports a study of the literature on the effects of treatment. All the papers, which dealt with the effects of treatment and used quantified measures of psychological change (numbering 57), appearing in eleven journals for the year 1957, were tabulated. The following findings emerged: (i) Sixteen of the 18 studies with a negative outcome were methodologically acceptable, while the other two were not. The studies with a positive outcome were evenly divided. (ii) Significantly more "positive" than "negative" studies were found. (iii) Apparent discrepancies in the outcomes of acceptable studies of the same treatments were found to be explicable in terms of differences (a) in criteria and methods of measurement, (b) in samples used, and (c) in the length of periods between measurements. The implications of these findings for future research are discussed.