How effective is CBT Self Help?

How Effective is CBT Self-Help? Would I be better seeing a therapist/counsellor?

Many people feel that they need some form of support for their mental health but, for a variety of reasons, they don’t want to speak to a professional face to face. So they may look at self-help. There are a wide range of self-help sources for mental health from books, YouTube videos, and online programmes such as Balanced People. So is self-help as good as it is seeing someone one-to-one?

In 2017 the results of a meta-analysis were published comparing the two for a range of mental health issues including anxiety, PTSD, OCD and depression. A meta-analysis is where they review all the research available and collate all the outcomes. The researchers thought that therapists/counsellors would have the better results. However, they actually found no difference between the two.

There was no difference in completion rate, or outcomes. They do point out that the self-help resources did have some form of contact with a professional – either administrative contact or initial training to help with the self-help and it is proposed that this contact makes a difference over just buying a self-help book.

This is good news for anyone using Balanced People as that is what we provide – CBT self-help resources with guidance. There are still some situations where self-help CBT may not be right (check out our other blog “Why Self-Help CBT (like Balanced People) may not be for you) but as a first line of intervention and support, self-help CBT can be very successful.

The article cited in this Blog is:

King, R.J., Orr, J.A., Poulsen, B. et al. Understanding the Therapist Contribution to Psychotherapy Outcome: A Meta-Analytic Approach. Adm Policy Ment Health 44, 664–680 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10488-016-0783-9