When a Placebo Is Not a Placebo: Problems and Solutions to the Gold Standard in Psychotherapy Research

Randomized placebo-controlled trials are recognized as the gold-standard of evidence-based medicine but when it comes to psychotherapy research all that g
litters is not gold. Translation of this standard from medicine to clinical psychology is fraught with difficulties. While a wealth of robust evidence shows that psychotherapy is effective for a range of mental health conditions the use of placebo controls to assess the effectiveness of specific psychological interventions faces serious conceptual and methodological challenges (Gaab et al., 2018).

In this Opinion article we identify two under-appreciated placebo-related problems which substantially risk the validity of clinical trials in psychotherapy. The first is a common misconception about the nature of placebos; the second is the problem of double-blinding. We review current solutions and future prospects for the gold-standard in psychotherapy research.

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