Stephen dubner asks angela duckworth, how effective is talk therapy really? A new paper by economists compared the impact of cash transfers and a psychotherapy programme on psychological and economic well being. They found that for individuals with poor mental health at base line and others, the effects of the combined treatments are similar to those of the cash transfer alone. In other words, psychotherapy, for this population at least, didn't help at all. Giving people money help them on psychological dimensions as well as economic dimensions.