What's this about?

How effective is therapy? And an equally interesting and less answered question: How effective is therapy effectiveness reporting?

Does it matter what mode of psychotherapy you study?

Is psychotherapy just a placebo?

Is the psychotherapist just as effective as a transitional object (eg, a large stuffed teddy bear)?

Therapies Tested and Found to Be Safe and Effective
Note that this doesn't list therapies tested and found to be unsafe and non-effective, nor therapies not tested.

From Stop Bad Therapy, a campaigning site attacking any therapy it considers bad. Its focus on therapeutic effectiveness and safety is important. But it is self-appointed and slightly ranty, not to mention a bit disorganised - the Site Map is probably the best method of navigation.

Also of interest is What is Good Therapy, though it then ducks the question for being too vague, and answers a different one instead. And the questionnaire, Evaluate your Therapy asks some interesting questions.
Grasping the Nettle: or Why Psychoanalytic Research is such an Irritant
Paper by Peter Fonagy arguing that Psychoanalysis needs to conduct research into it's effectiveness. See also an overview of his work in Nurture studies. [down at last link check - 18 Sep 05]
Effectiveness Matters: Counselling in Primary Care (pdf)
Sponsored by NICE (National Institute for Clinical Excellence) and peer reviewed. This exams the effectiveness of short-term counselling provided at GP (General Practitioner) Clinics in the UK by Counsellors, mainly registered with the BACP and (75%) holding diplomas, offering brief treatments (6 to 12 sessions). The clients were referred for mainly with stress and anxiety, depression, relationship and/or self-esteem problems; and bereavement counselling.
Effectiveness of Counselling
From CounsellingResource.com.