Coming from a reductionist "mind is brain" viewpoint, therapy actually does help. This is pretty well documented in the fact that 73% of patients who go through it say it helped in the long run. (statistic from my psych 101 textbook) Talking to a therapist may not increase your serotonin levels, but it does help teach you new mental "patterns" and ways to cope with the results. Saying the brain doesn't follow patterns is, well, wrong. The more you have a thought, the more the thought comes to you. If a chemical imbalance puts you in a mood that leaves you susceptible to a kind of thought, then you'll have that thought and start a negative pattern. So even then, if the chemical imbalance is fixed, you can still be stuck with the results. Therapy helps you build more positive patterns and maybe even let the old ones fade.
Coming from a reductionist "mind is brain" viewpoint, therapy actually does help. This is pretty well documented in the fact that 73% of patients who go through it say it helped in the long run. (statistic from my psych 101 textbook)
You have to admit, this is weak tea. What would you think of a pharmacological study that relied on the fact that 73% of patients "say it helped." We don't need no stinkin' effect size or control! As I'm sure you're aware, there is a great deal of controversy about the effectiveness of talking therapies, ...
For a site extremely focused on fixing bad thinking patterns, I've noticed a bizarre lack of discussion here. Considering the high correlation between intelligence and mental illness, you'd think it would be a bigger topic.
I personally suffer from Generalized Anxiety Disorder and a very tame panic disorder. Most of this is focused on financial and academic things, but I will also get panicky about social interaction, responsibilities, and things that happened in the past that seriously shouldn't bother me. I have an almost amusing response to anxiety that is basically my brain panicking and telling me to go hide under my desk.
I know lukeprog and Alicorn managed to fight off a good deal of their issues in this area and wrote up how, but I don't think enough has been done. They mostly dealt with depression. What about rational schizophrenics and phobics and bipolar people? It's difficult to find anxiety advice that goes beyond "do yoga while watching the sunrise!" Pop psych isn't very helpful. I think LessWrong could be. What's mental illness but a wrongness in the head?
Mental illness seems to be worse to intelligent people than your typical biases, honestly. Hiding under my desk is even less useful than, say, appealing to authority during an argument. At least the latter has the potential to be useful. I know it's limiting me, and starting cycles of avoidance, and so much more. And my mental illness isn't even that bad! Trying to be rational and successful when schizophrenic sounds like a Sisyphusian nightmare.
I'm not fighting my difficulties nearly well enough to feel qualified to author my own posts. Hearing from people who are managing is more likely to help. If nothing else, maybe a Rational Support Group would be a lot of fun.