1THE EFFECTIVENESS OF PSYCHOTHERAPYThe Effectiveness of Psychotherapy and How Costs Can Affect ItAngel Di Benedetto VasquezAU ID 3396085Athabasca UniversityPSYC 290 General PsychologyAssignment 3 Research PaperJo-Anne Tomie (Tutor)March 30th, 20212THE EFFECTIVENESS OF PSYCHOTHERAPYThe Effectiveness of Psychotherapy and How Costs Can Affect ItPsychotherapy represents a very important step in the well being of a human being, and it can help them overcome several mental problems when addressed appropriately, on time and by the right mental health professionals for the necessary length to cover the treatment needs. The purpose of this paper is to examine the effectiveness of psychotherapy in the improvement of patients who are diagnosed with different mental health issues and how this is affected by the cost of psychotherapy sessions. The perspectives examined below are presented with reference tofour research articles that involve the effectiveness of psychotherapy and the cost it involves to the patient. Both effectiveness and cost perspectives are briefly discussed, and the research paperwill close with conclusions about how one perspective can influence the other.Effectiveness of PsychotherapyA supplementary survey was applied to a population of 180,000 readers that were highlyeducated people, of the middle class in their 40s which about half of them were women. The subjects were asked 26 questions about the therapy each received. The purpose of those 26 questions was to measure how effective psychotherapy treatment was for the individuals who decided to fill in the survey. Most of the questions were very specific to the purpose and feeling of mental health improvement the subjects experienced, the cost of it and the reason they terminated their psychotherapy sessions. (Seligman, 1995, para. 30).To measure the effectiveness side of the studies, three subscales (specific improvement, satisfaction, and global improvement) were used as a measure of effectiveness scale. The results thrown by the study showed that getting treatment by a mental health professional worked on a usual basis since most of the participants of the study reported they improved after.3THE EFFECTIVENESS OF PSYCHOTHERAPYAlso, the length of the treatment was an important factor in determining the effectiveness of psychotherapy, and in tis respect, the study showed that the longer the treatment was, the more improvement the subject experienced, contrary to cases of short-term psychotherapy. The treatment provided by family doctors showed improvement scores in treatment provided for six months and longer, but those scores were surpassed by the treatments provided by mental health professionals, which lasted more than six months. Some of the subjects in the study carried by Seligman in 1995 showed that when their psychotherapy sessionswere limited by their insurance coverage did not do as well as in those subjects that did not have such coverage restriction, they did worse than the last ones mentioned in this paragraph. This justsupports the fact that the length of psychotherapy sessions has a determining impact in the improvement of the respondents of this study. (Seligman, 1995, para. 30) Nevertheless, in the decade of the 90s the effectiveness of psychotherapy was a very debated topic and many studies to evaluate the results of therapy. That research demonstrated considerable positive effects in the patients that experience improvement after treatment. Effectiveness in psychotherapy should also take into consideration two elements such aspatient variables, and common factors. Since there is very little evidence that the outcome of psychotherapy has uniquely to do with the therapist of what techniques they use in every session,the patient is probably the one to determine the effectiveness of psychotherapy. The patients that enter therapy usually have a set of psychological disorders, historical background, stress, amongst others. That will evidently affect their improvements after getting psychological therapy.4THE EFFECTIVENESS OF PSYCHOTHERAPYOther important elements are the common factors, which intervene in psychotherapy, those factors can help improving the outcome of therapy since they are mostly present during thein-session process of psychotherapy. To name some, we can mention the support factors such as catharsis, warmth, respect, trust, empathy, amongst others. Learning factors include insight, affective experiencing, corrective emotional experience, cognitive learning, etc. (Hersen, 2002)Cost of PsychotherapyIt was evident in Seligman’s research that the cost was a strong factor in psychotherapy sessions since some of the respondents to the survey provided previously showed that the length of the treatment depended on how much was the cost of every session or how many sessions would be covered by insurance or they were able to pay for them. Leave et al. (1998) “Cost-Effectiveness of treatments for major depression in primary care practice”, p.645 – 651., determined that normal interpersonal therapy provided by a mental health specialist produced significantly better clinical outcomes than a primary care physician’s care, as well as the patient experienced a higher number of non-depression days after such therapy. Furthermore, Michael Hersen (2002) in his Encyclopedia of Psychotherapy (p.709) he indicates that in a review published by Hans J. Eyesneck about the effectiveness in psychotherapy indicated that several patients (74 %) that had been diagnosed with neurosis had asimilar progress than patients that were diagnosed similarly and that had no treatment for over a period of two years. Schulberg et al. (2002) determined that psychotherapy produced better outcomes than the use of primary care on those patients who experienced major depression, but still the cost to be able to access this resource was considerably high.5THE EFFECTIVENESS OF PSYCHOTHERAPYIn the study of Lazar et al. (1997), a classic review of 58 studies designed to investigate the effect of psychotherapy on subsequent medical costs found that 85 % of studies reported a decrease in medical expenses after the provision of psychotherapy. Patients diagnosed with borderline disorder showed an important clinical improvement after a one-year treatment of at least two sessions in a week, that helped saving costs in disability, attempts to commit suicide, medical care and psychiatric hospitalization. Patients with major depression