Based on thirteen studies, the authors concluded that psychological therapies, all using a CBT approach, were more effective than treatment as usual or wait list control in achieving clinical response at post-treatment . However, those studies examining CBT against supportive therapy (nondirective therapy and attention-placebo conditions) did not find a significant difference in clinical response between CBT and supportive therapy at …show more content…
The concept of loss of control is challenged further by experiments in which the patient is invited to try and deliberately lose control of worrying. Beliefs about the dangers of worrying are modified through education and experiments in which attempts are made to induce negative outcomes by worry alone. Positive beliefs about worrying are modified by strategies such as ‘worry modulation experiments’ in which predicted improved outcomes due to worry can be tested by purposely increasing and decreasing worry and observing the real- world effects of doing this. The meta-analysis calculating uncontrolled pre- to post-treatment effect sizes found much a larger overall effect size of 1.80.In eleven effectiveness studies, the pre- to post-treatment effect size for CBT in generalized anxiety disorder was 0.92 (Olatunji BO., Cisler JM., Deacon BJ. Efficacy of cognitive behavioral therapy for anxiety disorders: a review of meta-analytic findings,