Actually, the study of Durham et al (Reference Durham, Guthrie and Morton2003) which was carried out under blind conditions failed to find a significant advantage for cognitive therapy over active placebo. The authors state that ‘Repeated measures analyses of variance were first conducted with three levels of treatment (CBT v. SPT v. TAU) and three time points (baseline, post-treatment, follow-up). There were significant effects for time for all variables except the GAS but no significant time × treatment interaction effects or contrasts for any of the measures’. This was for ‘Changes in severity from baseline’, with an essentially similar finding for ‘Clinically significant improvement’.