The Investigation of the Effects of Psychiatric Treatment

Abstract

The first aim of the study reported in this paper was to check Foulds's finding that claims for the success of a treatment were related to the degree of experimental control which authors exercised in their investigations (77). Foulds, from a selection of papers appearing between 1951 and 1956, showed that five studies (6·9 per cent, of the total) were controlled and claimed success, 15 (20·8 per cent, of the total) were controlled and claimed failure, 43 (59·7 per cent, of the total) were uncontrolled and claimed success and 9 (12·5 per cent. of the total) were uncontrolled and reported failure.