Self-statement modification with adults: A meta-analysis

Self-statement modification (SSM) has rapidly grown in popularity, and is commonly a principal technique of cognitive-behavioral therapies. Reviews to date, however, are inconclusive about its efficacy and less than exhaustive in their coverage. The present authors attempted to locate all controlled studies in which therapy incorporated direct modification of covert self-statements. Meta-analysis was used as a statistical method of integrating the outcome data across studies. Aggregating across all types of clinical outcome measures, SSM evidenced considerable gains beyond no-treatment controls. This advantage was sufficient to place the average SSM-treated S at a level of therapeutic outcome comparable to the 77th percentile of controls. As suspected, there were many salient qualifiers of outcome, and effects were generally smaller when therapy was contrasted to placebo treatment rather than no treatment at all. Implications are discussed in terms of the need for greater specificity in the terminology for cognitive-behavior techniques. (25 ref)