In This Issue

This issue begins with a meta-analysis by Zhu and colleagues focused on the potential therapeutic effectiveness of the ‘psychological placebos’ used as control conditions in randomized controlled trials (RCTs) about the usefulness of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) in the treatment of generalized anxiety disorder. The unsurprising finding was that relaxation training, nondirective support groups, and similar non-specific interventions had a non-negligible therapeutic effect (compared to a wait list condition) that needs to be taken into consideration when designing or evaluating trials about the effectiveness of psychotherapy. A secondary finding of the study was the authors’ inability to identify any high-quality RCTs about CBT in lowand middle-income countries. Given the lack of such studies in their own settings, clinicians in these countries usually follow treatment guidelines based on psychotherapy research in high-income countries. Considering the very different sociocultural environment of their patients compared to patients in high-income countries, it is by no means certain that this is appropriate. Clearly, more high-quality psychotherapy research is needed in nonWestern settings.