Two papers in the Journal this month report on results from the Christchurch Psychotherapy of Depression Study, a randomised controlled trial of interpersonal psychotherapy and cognitive–behavioural therapy (CBT) involving an out-patient sample. Luty et al (pp. 496–502) found no significant difference in efficacy between the two treatment groups, with overall improvements in depressive symptomatology being approximately 55% for both. However, those patients with severe depression had better outcomes if allocated to the CBT group. The presence of personality disorder did not have an impact on treatment outcome for those in the CBT group but did adversely affect response to interpersonal psychotherapy (Joyce et al, pp. 503–508). Regarding the latter finding, severity of personality disorder and the presence of particular personality features, such as avoidant and schizoid symptoms, appeared to explain much of impact on outcome.
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