pjeby comments on Open Thread: June 2010 - Less Wrong

5 Post author: Morendil 01 June 2010 06:04PM

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Comment author: pjeby 06 June 2010 04:14:12AM 2 points [-]

Psychotherapy makes a lot of people incredulous, but iis it really fair to say that most methods in practice today are ~0% effective?

It's not that they're 0% effective, it's that they're not much more effective than placebo therapy (i.e. being put on a waiting list for therapy), or keeping a journal.

CBT is somewhat more effective, but I've also heard that it's not as effective for high-ruminators... i.e., people who already obsess about their thinking.

Comment author: AlanCrowe 06 June 2010 08:08:27PM 2 points [-]

Scientific medicine is difficult and expensive. I worry that the apparent success of CBT may be because methodological compromises needed to make the research practical happen to flatter CBT more than they flatter other approaches.

I might be worrying about the wrong thing. Do we know anything about the usefulness of Prozac in treating depression? Since we turn a blind eye to the unblinding of all our studies by the sexual side-effects of Prozac, and also refuse to consider the direct impact of those side-effects it could be argued that we don't actually have any scientific knowledge of the effectiveness of the drug.

Comment author: Douglas_Knight 06 June 2010 11:49:42AM *  0 points [-]

The claim I've seen associated with Robyn Dawes is that therapy is useful (which I read as "more useful than being on a waiting list"), but that untrained therapists are just as good as those trained under most methods. (ETA: and, contrary to Kevin, they have been tested and found wanting)