AccScience Publishing / JCBP / Online First / DOI: 10.36922/JCBP025300055
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ORIGINAL RESEARCH ARTICLE

A comparison of group balancing psychotherapy and group cognitive behavioral therapy for generalized anxiety disorder in China

Yuting Gao1,2 ,  Yonggui Yuan2,3*
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1 Department/Unit of Student Affairs Office, The Mental Health Education Center, Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Nanjing, Jiangsu, China
2 Department of Psychosomatics and Psychiatry, Zhongda Hospital, Nanjing, Jiangsu, China
3 Jiangsu Provincial Key Laboratory of Brain Science and Medicine, Institute of Psychosomatics, Southeast University, Nanjing, Jiangsu, China
JCBP, 025300055 https://doi.org/10.36922/JCBP025300055
Received: 24 July 2025 | Revised: 29 September 2025 | Accepted: 9 October 2025 | Published online: 28 October 2025
© 2025 by the Author(s). This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ )
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Abstract

Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) is a mental health condition characterized by persistent and excessive worrying. While controlled clinical trials have demonstrated the effectiveness of cognitive behavioral therapy and balancing psychotherapy (BPT) in alleviating symptoms of GAD, there is a lack of research comparing BPT with alternative treatment modalities. This study aims to investigate the differential efficacy of group balancing psychotherapy (GBPT) compared to group cognitive behavioral therapy (GCBT) in the treatment of GAD. Patients with GAD were recruited through both online and offline channels and randomly assigned to one of two groups: GBPT or GCBT. Each Group received 8 weeks of group psychotherapy in addition to conventional treatment. The Hamilton Anxiety Scale, Patient Health Questionnaire-9, and Patient Health Questionnaire-15 were used to evaluate treatment outcomes. There were no notable differences in demographics or baseline levels of anxiety, depression, or somatization between the two groups (p>0.05). Following the 8-week group psychotherapy intervention, there was a significant decrease in anxiety, depression, and somatization levels in both the GBPT group (t = 8.74, p<0.001; t = 3.77, p<0.01; t = 4.92, p<0.001) and the GCBT group (t = 9.31, p<0.001; t = 5.57, p<0.001; t = 2.24, p<0.05). The main effect of time was significant, but the main effect of intervention and the interaction effect were not significant. Both GBPT and GCBT effectively reduced anxiety, depression, and somatization in patients with GAD. Given its alignment with local cultural values, GBPT is a promising approach that warrants further investigation.

Keywords
Group psychotherapy
Balancing psychotherapy
Cognitive behavior therapy
Generalized anxiety disorder
Effectiveness
Funding
None.
Conflict of interest
Yonggui Yuan is the Editor-in-Chief of this journal but was not involved in the editorial or peer-review process for this paper, either directly or indirectly. Separately, other authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have influenced the work reported in this paper.
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Journal of Clinical and Basic Psychosomatics, Electronic ISSN: 2972-4414 Print ISSN: 3060-8562, Published by AccScience Publishing
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