Narrative therapy vs. cognitive-behavioral therapy for moderate depression: empirical evidence from a controlled clinical trial.

BACKGROUND Systematic studies of the efficacy of Narrative Therapy (NT) for depression are sparse. OBJECTIVE To evaluate the efficacy of individual NT for moderate depression in adults compared to Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT). METHOD Sixty-three depressed clients were assigned to either NT or CBT. The Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II) and Outcome Questionnaire-45.2 (OQ-45.2) were used as outcome measures. RESULTS We found a significant symptomatic reduction in both treatments. Group differences favoring CBT were found on the BDI-II, but not on the OQ-45.2. CONCLUSIONS Pre- to post-treatment effect sizes for completers in both groups were superior to benchmarked waiting-list control groups.