Psychotherapy with persons with intellectual disabilities: a review of effectiveness research

Abstract

If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/ authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. AbstractPurpose -The purpose of this paper is to provide an update on the effectiveness of psychotherapy with persons with intellectual disabilities.Design/methodology/approach -This paper focused on summarizing the conclusions of other reviews published in the last ten years, including a recent review by the authors.Findings -The paper concludes that there is evidence that psychotherapy with persons with intellectual disabilities is at least moderately effective. Further, there is evidence of effectiveness of psychotherapy for both child and adolescent, and adult populations. There is also evidence that a range of therapeutic interventions are effective and that a spectrum of problems can be addressed via psychotherapy.Research limitations/implications -This area has received relatively little attention in the research literature and the area lacks a large base of methodologically sound and rigorous studies. There is a need for well-designed studies, particularly randomized controlled trials (RCTs), and a need for better specification of treatments (e.g. manualized), better outcome measures, and clearer specification of diagnostic categories within the intellectual disability population.Practical implications -This review provides continued support for the use of psychotherapy with persons with intellectual disabilities.Originality/value -This review appears to represent the most current overview of research in this area.The effectiveness of psychotherapy has long been an issue of debate among mental-health researchers and professionals. With increasing utilization of psychotropic medications to treat a wide range of mental disorders, there is even more pressure to identify effective treatments that offer advantages over medication or enhance the effectiveness of medical treatments. Psychotherapy outcome studies have become the focal point of these debates.The early research views on the effectiveness of psychotherapy were not very positive. Eysenck (1952) published a classic and controversial review on the effectiveness of psychotherapy with adults, mostly described as neurotic. He reviewed a number of studies and concluded that the number of individuals who improved with treatment ...

Individuals with intellectual disabilities experiences of the therapeutic relationship

“…It also highlights despite the increase of research in the last decade, it is still not enough. Other reviews have also supported the usefulness of psychotherapeutic interventions but call for more robust research (Fletcher et al , 2011; Vereenooghe and Langdon, 2013). Individuals with ID have also reported finding psychotherapy beneficial, despite finding it challenging.…”

Psychological therapies and people who have ID: a report from the Royal College of Psychiatrists and British Psychological Society

“…Whilst this was not originally envisaged to impact on services for people who have ID; it was not long before that changed as part of the accessing mainstream services agenda became better established. Concurrently it was noticeable from national and international conferences and publications that psychological therapies were continuing to be provided, but also more approaches have been made available (Nicoll et al, 2013;Thompson Prout and Browning, 2011;Vereenooghe and Langdon, 2013) and that newly developing approaches have been made available much more quickly than in the past (see e.g. Fletcher, 2011).…”