Psychological Treatment: Effectiveness of Treatment

Specific Disorder	Most Effective Treatment
Panic disorders	Cognitive therapy
Specific phobias	Systematic desensitization
Obsessive-compulsive disorder	Behavior therapy or medication
Depression	Cognitive therapy
Post–traumatic stress disorder and agoraphobia	Exposure treatment

Clients who are likely to benefit from therapy share some common features:

Clients who are less likely to benefit from therapy also share some features:

Under some conditions, therapy can be harmful to the client. Clients may be harmed if:

Therapists engage in unethical behavior, such as by having sexual relationships with clients
Therapists act according to personal prejudices or are ignorant of cultural differences between themselves and their clients
Therapists coerce clients into doing things they don’t want to do
Therapists use techniques that research has not demonstrated as being effective
Therapists lead their clients to produce false memories of past traumas through careless use of techniques such as hypnosis or free association

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