title: Is psychotherapy good for your health?
abstract: This is a dedicated review of the evidence for the relation of having a period of psychotherapy and then comparing it with a measure of improved physical health. We aimed to make it the first intended-to-be-complete review of this type. Three inter-related types of studies were examined: Type 1: reduction in physical illnesses through psychotherapy, especially for the patient's survival time during the interval between diagnosis and an end point, Type 2: reduction in pain in relation to receiving psychotherapy, and Type 3: reduction in costs of treatment in relation to receiving psychotherapy. To find the relevant studies on these topics, we performed a literature search using both Psychinfo and Medline databases. An average of the effect sizes under each type was taken to calculate the mean effect size along with its confidence interval. Our results (1) on survival time for the combined severe patients, did not reach even the lowest significant level of effect size, although the low severity patients seemed to fit the hypothesis better, but the other two reduction topics, (2) and (3), clearly did achieve it.
authors.affiliation: Center for Psychotherapy Research, Department of Psychiatry, University of Pennsylvania, 3535 Market Street, 6thh Floor, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA. Luborsky@mail.med.upenn.edu
authors.forename: Lester
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Luborsky
authors.forename: Ramaris E
authors.initials: RE
authors.lastname: German
authors.forename: Louis
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Diguer
authors.forename: Jeffrey S
authors.initials: JS
authors.lastname: Berman
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Kirk
authors.forename: Marna S
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Barrett
authors.forename: Ellen
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Luborsky
mesh_terms: D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000523:psychology; D017281:Cost of Illness; D005260:Female; D006304:Health Status; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008545:Melanoma / Q000523:psychology; D010146:Pain / Q000523:psychology; D059408:Pain Management; D011613:Psychotherapy; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D016019:Survival Analysis