ArticlePLOS mental health2024
Is more psychotherapy a dead horse? An essay on the (in)effectiveness of individual treatment for mental suffering.
Article in PLOS mental health, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed.
- The DSM needs more than revision: five blind spots and a case for dialogical redesign.Psychological medicine · 2026Article
- Toward a paradox-oriented paradigm of knowing: the form theory of observation and quality in empirical sciences.Frontiers in sociology · 2026Review
- The potential of event-related beta oscillations as biomarkers for neuromodulatory treatment efficacy.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
In the past decades, psychological and pharmacological treatment access has improved, but the prevalence of mental health conditions has nevertheless increased across all age groups, and particularly in young people. Recent reviews, taking biases and quality of included studies into account, confirm the relative ineffectiveness of individual psychotherapies for alleviating mental suffering. Many new forms of individual therapy have been developed since the 1970s, without resulting in improved rates of recovery from treatment. Various stakeholders keep advocating for more psychotherapy, but instead, we propose that more primary prevention strategies may be our best hope for reducing the burden of mental disorders.
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.