As stated here, this doesn’t seem like a strong finding to me. We’re told nothing about how strong anything is. The 2:1 says zero about the intensity (other than it was detectable by whatever measure used) of better-offedness. Were they suicidal and it saved their lives (pretty strong), or did they feel a little better for an hour (trivial)? What was the “measure”, and why would anyone care about it? A 2:1 chance of having a trivial effect would say nothing about the effectiveness of psychotherapy.

Is this a problem with the summary, or with the study itself?

That people do better when they think others care about them is old news to social scientists .

The famous ‘Hawthorne Studies’ of the 1920’s-1930’s documented such a common, placebo-like effect.

These studies of Chicago factory workers were scientifically attempting to improve worker productivity with various physical changes (better lighting & temperature/humidity in work areas, wage incentives, etc.) — but researchers discovered individual worker productivity generally increased no matter what they changed or did not change, even in the unaffected control groups. The workers markedly benefited just by knowing others were directly interested in their work and were trying to help.

Harvard Professor Elton Mayo led this research and his “Hawthorne Effect” is a classic in professional psychology.

The significant human variable was not physiological but psychological– and surprisingly easy to improve by simple interaction with other humans who care.