Psychotherapy research : journal of the Society for Psychotherapy Research
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Little is known about how exclusion criteria applied in randomized controlled trials (RCTs) affect the transfer of psychotherapy outcome research to naturalistic settings. This study evaluated the effects of naturalistic depression therapies and benchmarked them with published RCTs. ⋯ No systematic bias was demonstrated due to patient selection criteria that are typically applied in RCTs. The comparability of psychotherapies conducted in RCTs and in real-world settings might be underestimated. Conclusions concerning the improvement of therapies in naturalistic settings are discussed.