|
Psychotherapy
|
|||
|
|
 |
There is probably no other arena of professional psychology that generates more heated discussion among psychologists than whether psychotherapy works, and if it does, then for whom, under what circumstances, and for what problems or conditions? |
|
|
The answers to such questions are not as obvious as we would hope; for if they were as clear as, for example, answers about which medicines work for what physical disorders and ailments, then we would find treatment manuals with generally undisputed reports of effective therapies for specific mental and emotional problems. The unfortunate situation is, however, that within the psychotherapeutic community, there is very little common ground. Certainly there are ways to translate psychotherapeutic principles back and forth among the languages of the various schools of psychology. For example, an object-relations therapist would be able to have a useful discussion with a behaviorist, and an experienced existential psychotherapist could be quite comfortable chatting with a therapist of the psychoanalytic persuasion. But unlike physical medicine, which is in large part now pan-theoretical, psychotherapists often have strong opinions, generally unsupported by empirical evidence, about what causes people to suffer from mental and emotional disorders, and what will be curative or palliative for those conditions. A hundred years ago, medical doctors commonly argued about whether Simmons' Liver Regulator (circa 1872) was better than Warner's Safe Kidney and Liver Cure (circa 1881). A couple of decades later, for the respectable fee of $1, you could have been prescribed Ballard's Horehound Syrup for that dry, hacking cough that troubled you. The application of scientific methodology to such concoctions finally caused mainstream medicine to move away from anecdotal evidence and unfettered claims, and toward standardization in the methods by which medicines would be tested and marketed. To be continued . . . . please email me with comments or opinions. K S Harris, 10-25-02)
|
|||