Two New Psychotherapy Studies: Back to the Future?

This column reviews 2 recent high-quality psychotherapy research studies. One study by Steinert and colleagues suggests that psychodynamic therapy is equivalent to cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) (or medication when this was the comparator) for a range of disorders. A second study by Barlow and colleagues finds Unified Protocol CBT targeting underlying emotional dysregulation to be equivalent to single disorder-specific CBT for a range of anxiety disorders. Taken together, these studies help bridge the gap between CBT and psychodynamic therapy and refocus us on the realities of clinical settings, where most patients present with multiple comorbid disorders.