Randomized controlled trials confirm the efficacy of psychological interventions and medications: Commentary on Jobes and Barnett (2025).

Abstract

Jobes and Barnett (see record 2024-78987-001) decided to emphasize and recommend only psychological interventions (e.g., dialectical behavior therapy) in the clinical treatment for suicidal risk and behavior. Such interventions have been, in fact, proven effective in research emphasizing randomized controlled trials. Jobes and Barnett, however, decided not to include a section dealing with medications because they concluded that, with some exceptions (e.g., clozapine), the majority of medications have "little to no evidence" in randomized controlled trials. The article by Jobes and Barnett not only appears to be unintentionally biased in favor of only recommending psychological interventions, but it also appears clinically unsound to advise clinicians to de-emphasize medications in the present clinical context. The core message in the article (emphasis on psychological interventions, but not on medications) does not appear in accord with the American Psychological Association RxP Designation Committee with the mission to review and approve programs in prescriptive authority for psychologists nor with the wide range of medications with evidenced clinical benefits derived from randomized controlled trials funded by the National Institutes of Health and approved for marketing by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).