Therapy’s efficacy varies by disorder

Updated: 2026.01.16 13D ago 10 sources
A 2025 meta-analysis (Harrer et al.) finds psychotherapy has large effects for phobias, PTSD, OCD, and social/generalized anxiety, moderate for depression, and small but positive effects for psychosis and suicidal ideation. It also reports similar effectiveness in non‑Western and low‑/middle‑income countries compared with Western, wealthy settings. — Quantified, cross‑disorder effect sizes and cross‑region parity can guide resource allocation, set realistic expectations, and counter claims that therapy is primarily a Western intervention.

Sources

In Pursuit of a Psychedelic Without the Hallucination
Kristen French 2026.01.16 60% relevant
Both items concern the clinical impact of treatments for mental illness; the Nautilus story reports a pharmacological route that could complement or alter psychotherapeutic approaches and triage (e.g., which disorders favor drug vs therapy), linking directly to the article’s emphasis on differential clinical benefit and safety across diagnoses.
Delusions Are Often Not-So-Delusional After All
Kristen French 2026.01.13 78% relevant
Nautilus summarizes a Lancet Psychiatry qualitative study that reframes delusions as lived, embodied phenomena; that connects to the existing idea that different disorders respond differently to psychotherapy and implies different therapeutic targets and expectations for psychosis care (actor: Lancet Psychiatry authors; claim: delusions arise from altered embodied experience, not just false beliefs).
Exercise is as Effective as Medication in Treating Depression, Study Finds
msmash 2026.01.12 75% relevant
Both items are high‑quality meta‑analytic syntheses about mental‑health treatments; this Cochrane review complements and extends the earlier finding that treatment effect sizes differ by disorder by showing that, for depression specifically, exercise produces effect sizes comparable to pharmacological and psychological interventions (biological mechanisms such as BDNF noted in the article).
The Problem with Our Response to Mass Shootings
Carolyn D. Gorman 2026.01.08 76% relevant
The article leans on Bonanno’s work and the broader literature showing heterogeneous psychotherapy outcomes across disorders and that most people follow a resilience trajectory after acute traumatic events; this directly connects to the existing idea that clinical benefit is disorder‑specific and that blanket, post‑event therapy programs are not empirically justified.
These Women Giggle, Cry, and Sneeze When They Orgasm
Kristen French 2026.01.07 48% relevant
Both items concern differential clinical evidence across conditions and how robust data should drive care and resource allocation; Streicher’s survey (3,800 respondents; 86 reported peri‑orgasmic phenomena) is an empirical input that could guide whether specialized diagnostic categories or therapeutic approaches are warranted, analogous to how the cited meta‑analysis parsed psychotherapy effectiveness by disorder.
Here’s What Happens to Your Brain When Your Mind Goes Blank
Devin Reese 2026.01.02 45% relevant
Both pieces touch clinical heterogeneity in mental states: the Nautilus article reports a measurable neurophysiological state ('mind blanking') that the authors link to anxiety and ADHD, which could affect how and when psychotherapy shows benefit or how clinicians assess symptom phenomenology—connecting neuroscientific measurement to the existing idea that therapeutic effects differ by disorder and that better measurement should guide allocation of care.
The Emotional Cost of Parental Burnout
Kristen French 2025.12.30 55% relevant
Both items sit in the same public‑health/psychology space: the Nautilus article provides new empirical detail about parental burnout as a distinct clinical/social problem and how it degrades emotional presence, which bears on conclusions about where psychotherapy, screening, and service delivery will be most effective and which disorders or social conditions warrant targeted intervention.
Here’s Why Some Insomniacs Can’t Sleep
Bob Grant 2025.12.04 72% relevant
The Nautilus article reports an empirical mechanism (failure to downshift cognitive state) that helps explain why generic interventions may fail for insomnia and points toward disorder‑specific treatments (circadian interventions, targeted CBT‑I, neuromodulation) — directly connecting to the existing idea that therapeutic effectiveness differs across conditions and must be evidence‑matched.
Abigail Marsh on Psychopaths
Yascha Mounk 2025.12.02 78% relevant
Marsh’s discussion of psychopathy as a distinct personality disorder with boldness, meanness, and disinhibition maps onto the existing idea that therapeutic effectiveness differs across diagnoses: psychopathic traits predict particular treatment challenges and require different intervention targets than, say, anxiety or depression.
Therapy by the Numbers
Steve Stewart-Williams 2025.10.01 100% relevant
The article lists Hedges’ g values (e.g., phobias g=1.25; PTSD g=1.18; psychotic disorders g=0.32) and notes no efficacy gap between Western and non‑Western contexts.
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