Is there an evidence-based number of sessions in outpatient psychotherapy? – A comparison of naturalistic conditions across countries

Deciding on the number of psychotherapy sessions to satisfactorily treat a patient is a vital clinical as well as economic issue in most mental health systems worldwide. The length of outpatient psychotherapy in naturalistic conditions ranges from a single session to hundreds of sessions [1]. In randomized clinical trials, the number of sessions is typically fixed to deliver manualized treatments and to control for dosage effects (e.g., in a 16-session format [2]). Using data from Routine Outcome Monitoring studies [3, 4], we investigated whether the treatments under naturalistic conditions were fixed to a particular number of sessions or not (H1), whether naturalistic conditions tended to include unusually long treatments (e.g., >100 sessions) (H2), and how the observed number of sessions was distributed across countries (H3)

Motivation as a predictor of outcomes in school-based humanistic counselling

Recent years have seen a growth in the provision of counselling within UK secondary schools, and research indicates that it is associated with significant reductions in psychological distress. However, little is known about the moderators and mediators of positive therapeutic benefit. In the field of adult mental health, motivation has been found to be one of the strongest predictors of therapeutic outcomes, and it was hypothesised that this may also be a predictor of outcomes for young people in school-based counselling services. To assess the relationship between young people’s motivation for counselling and its effectiveness within a secondary school setting. Eighty-one young people (12 - 17 years old) who attended school-based humanistic counselling services in Scotland. Clients completed a measure of motivation for counselling at the commencement of their therapeutic work and a measure of psychological wellbeing at the commencement and termination of counselling. Motivation for counselling was not found to be significantly related to outcomes. The results indicate that the association between motivation and outcomes may be weaker in young people as compared with adults. However, a number of design factors may also account for the non-significant findings: insufficient participants, marginal reliability of the motivation measure and social desirability effects