Abstract
Finding the kernel: psychological treatments through the sieve. This paper presents the conclusions drawn from a review of the efficaciousness (as well as the effectiveness) of therapy for the following fourteen psychological disorders: schizophrenia, drug-dependence, anorexia and bulimia, personality disorders, hypochondria, compulsive-obsessive disorder, sexual dysfunctions, general anxiety, specific phobias, agoraphobia, panic disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, unipolar depression and bipolar depression. For each one of these, it has been possible to say which treatments are well established, which are probab ly efficacious and which ar e at the experimental stage. This has thus involved their separation and classification - a kind of sifting process. It is notable that, for the majority of the disorders reviewed, there is some type of well-established psychological treatment, even though there may also exist a pharmacological one. It is also important to point out that numerous well-known psycholog ical treatments have not been subjected to this type of study. Even though the current situation leaves room for optimism, authors are critical, questioning both the psychopathological conception of disorders and the oversimplification and limitations of the nature of the treatments that derives from the establishment of a specific correspondence between a pre-established clinical condition and a given therapeutic procedure.
