Also, more specifically but less generally relevant to LW; as a person being pressured to make use of psychological services, are there any rationalist psychologists in the Denver, CO area?
Do they really have such a poor track record? I know some scientists have very little respect for the “soft” sciences, but sociologist can at least make generalizations from studies done on large scales. Psychotherapy makes a lot of people incredulous, but iis it really fair to say that most methods in practice today are ~0% effective?
Yes this is essentially a post stating my incredulity. Would you mind quelling it?
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.
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.
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)
It’s not that other forms of psychotherapy are scientifically shown to be 0% effective; it’s just that evidence-based psychotherapy is a surprisingly recent field. Psychotherapy can still work even if some fields of it have not had rigorous studies showing their effectiveness… but you might as well go with a therapist that has training in a field of psychotherapy that has some scientific method behind it.
I can’t help you with the Denver area in particular, but the general answer is a definite yes. In an interesting juxtaposition, American Psychologist magazine had a recent issue prominently featuring discussion of how to get past the misuse of statistics discussed in this very LW open thread. And it’s not the first time the magazine addressed the point.
Does cognitive rationalist therapy count as both rationalist and psychology for purposes of this question?
I think Learning Methods is a more sophisticated rationalist approach than CBT (it does a more meticulous job of identifying underlying thoughts), and might be worth checking into.
I think Learning Methods is a more sophisticated rationalist approach than CBT
Interesting. I found the site to be not very helpful, until I hit this page, which strongly suggests that at least one thing people are learning from this training is the practical application of the Mind Projection Fallacy:
Was the movie good or bad? If you answer BOTH, think it through. In a factual sense, can the same movie be good AND bad? If it’s good, how can it be bad? The only way to make sense of a movie being both good and bad is to realize that the goodness and badness does not exist IN the movie, but IN Jack and IN Jill as a reflection of how the movie matches their individual criteria.
The quote is from an article written by an LM student, and some insights from the learning process that helped her overcome her stage fright.
IOW, at least one aspect of LM sounds a bit like “rationality dojo” to me (in the sense that here’s an ordinary person with no special interest in rationalism, giving a beautiful (and more detailed than I quoted here) explanation of the Mind Projection Fallacy, based on her practical applications of it in everyday life .
(Bias disclaimer: I might be positively inclined to what I’m reading because some of it resembles or is readily translatable to aspects of my own models. Another article that I’m in the middle of reading, for example, talks about the importance of addressing the origins of nonconsciously-triggered mental and physical reactions, vs. consciously overriding symptoms—another approach I personally favor.)
Are there any rationalist psychologists?
Also, more specifically but less generally relevant to LW; as a person being pressured to make use of psychological services, are there any rationalist psychologists in the Denver, CO area?
As a start, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_behavioral_therapy is a branch of psychotherapy with some respect around here because of the evidence that it sometimes works, compared to the other fields of psychotherapy with no evidence.
Do they really have such a poor track record? I know some scientists have very little respect for the “soft” sciences, but sociologist can at least make generalizations from studies done on large scales. Psychotherapy makes a lot of people incredulous, but iis it really fair to say that most methods in practice today are ~0% effective?
Yes this is essentially a post stating my incredulity. Would you mind quelling it?
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.
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.
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)
It’s not that other forms of psychotherapy are scientifically shown to be 0% effective; it’s just that evidence-based psychotherapy is a surprisingly recent field. Psychotherapy can still work even if some fields of it have not had rigorous studies showing their effectiveness… but you might as well go with a therapist that has training in a field of psychotherapy that has some scientific method behind it.
http://www.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?type=doc&id=13023&cn=5
I can’t help you with the Denver area in particular, but the general answer is a definite yes. In an interesting juxtaposition, American Psychologist magazine had a recent issue prominently featuring discussion of how to get past the misuse of statistics discussed in this very LW open thread. And it’s not the first time the magazine addressed the point.
Does cognitive rationalist therapy count as both rationalist and psychology for purposes of this question?
I think Learning Methods is a more sophisticated rationalist approach than CBT (it does a more meticulous job of identifying underlying thoughts), and might be worth checking into.
Interesting. I found the site to be not very helpful, until I hit this page, which strongly suggests that at least one thing people are learning from this training is the practical application of the Mind Projection Fallacy:
The quote is from an article written by an LM student, and some insights from the learning process that helped her overcome her stage fright.
IOW, at least one aspect of LM sounds a bit like “rationality dojo” to me (in the sense that here’s an ordinary person with no special interest in rationalism, giving a beautiful (and more detailed than I quoted here) explanation of the Mind Projection Fallacy, based on her practical applications of it in everyday life .
(Bias disclaimer: I might be positively inclined to what I’m reading because some of it resembles or is readily translatable to aspects of my own models. Another article that I’m in the middle of reading, for example, talks about the importance of addressing the origins of nonconsciously-triggered mental and physical reactions, vs. consciously overriding symptoms—another approach I personally favor.)