Interpersonal counseling versus active listening in the treatment of mild depression: a randomized controlled trial.

The trial was planned for 60 people and only 54 were recruited, with 48 analysed (24 per group), so it is smaller than intended and may have missed a real difference between the two approaches. Groups were formed by assigning people alternately in the order they signed up rather than by concealed randomisation, so the two groups were not created by chance. Only one of the four measurement points showed a difference, and the stated endpoint covered all of them; a single significant point in a small trial can be a chance finding. There was no untreated comparison group, so the study cannot show that either form of counseling worked better than no treatment. The participants were general university students, not patients receiving physical therapy, and most were women (37 of 48), so the results may not fit the patients you see. The counseling was given by psychology graduate students with at least one day of training but no licence, which may differ from who would deliver it in practice.

Funded by a Japanese government research grant (JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number 16K04406) and Kwansei Gakuin University's Individual Special Research Fund for 2019 and 2020. The authors declare no conflict of interest. Parts of the study were presented at Japanese mood disorder and cognitive therapy society meetings.

Do not take this as proof that a short course of interpersonal counseling works for depression. The only difference between the two groups turned up at a single follow-up point four weeks after the sessions, the study analysed 48 students after six dropped out, and people were put into groups alternately in the order they registered rather than by chance, so a real difference could have been missed or created.