Mention the topic of self-administered treatments to psychologists and you can expect varied reactions, ranging from dismissive skepticism (e.g., "you don't really expect people to treat themselves") to threatened existence (e.g., "this research undermines my role as a therapist"). What surprises many is the quantity, and sometimes the quality, of research conducted on self-administered treatments. This special issue presents reviews by leading scholars on the status of self-administered treatments in areas of great relevance to public health. These contributors were chosen because they are actively engaged in empirical research on the efficacy of self-administered treatments. Whatever one believes about the merits of self-administered treatments, realistically, they are here to stay and as a consequence it behooves one to know what materials (with which clients, with which difficulties) can be considered evidence-based treatments.
The first contribution by Michele Newman, Thane Erickson, Amy Przeworski, and Ellen Dzus reviews research on self-help and minimal contact interventions for anxiety disorders. This chapter is organized around the provocative question of whether human contact is necessary for therapeutic efficacy. As is the case with most questions posed in psychology, the answer is "it all depends." For some anxiety disorders, purely selfadministered treatments may be beneficial whereas increasing levels of therapist contribution may be necessary for benefit in other diagnostic categories. Newman et al. delineate the literature by amount of therapist contact into four groups: (a) self-administered therapy, (b) predominantly self-help, (c) minimal contact therapy, and (d) predominantly therapist-administered therapy. This demarcation may provide useful for future reviews of the self-help literature. These authors suggest that determining the cost associated with various self-administered treatments relative to more traditional interventions should be a part of future investigative efforts. Such information could be used to make decisions about what types of interventions may be more cost efficient.
The second contribution, by Nancy McKendree-Smith, Mark Floyd, and me, reviews the literature on self-administered treatments for depression. Depression has become a major public health focus, and finding diverse methods to combat this costly disorder are