Let me start by saying that I definitely don’t recommend people go to therapy anymore unless I can also offer them guidance (like with this post) in what to expect or how to spot a good therapist or what kinds of modalities are effective. There are just too many bad therapists out there. But I think your comment may be too confident in the wrong direction.
>I think people should know that when it’s been studied, there’s little evidence that talk therapy works better than getting support from a friend, family member, or other trusted person.
Would love to read a source for this, if you could point me to which study you’re referring to. To me the most interesting studies on therapeutic effectiveness focus on a particular modality, like the one I linked to in the post, whereas “therapy” as a whole is such a mixed grab-bag of different philosophies and ideas that as a generic practice, I’m definitely willing to believe that most people’s experience with it has not been particularly effective. But that doesn’t mean an “informed shopper” with a good guide can’t beat the odds.
>But anytime a person invests substantial time and money into a given strategy, there is a risk that their assessment of the results of that strategy will be affected by confirmation bias, sunk cost bias, and cognitive dissonance.
Interestingly, my experience is the opposite; people are very quick to point out when therapy didn’t work for them, particularly if they feel like they wasted a lot of time and money at it. I don’t generally see a lot of people singing the praise of therapy unless they had an outstandingly good experience with it.
>Experiment for yourself, by all means, but my experience has been that a very brief conversation, coming at the right moment, can be incredibly therapeutic. Or an in-depth conversation every few months. Or support from a friend along with all the other self-help strategies that commonly work for mental/emotional problems.
Absolutely true, for the majority of situations people are troubled by. As I said in the post, I think therapy is best meant for when nothing else seems to work, including talking to friends and family.
>If you tried therapy, you would see how great it is. Therefore, you must not have tried it, so I will dismiss your opinion.
This is indeed a dumb argument, and I’m sorry that you’ve been told that. Like I said, I’ve often heard the opposite; people with bad experiences with therapy are more likely to speak out about their bad experiences, in general, and most get sympathy for expressing how therapy didn’t work for them. I can imagine people trying to suggest that THEIR experience with therapy was particularly good and so if you just tried the modality they experienced maybe you’d change your mind, but practitioner skill also makes a huge difference, and the relationship with the practitioner is always a wildcard, so people should generally be a lot less confident when recommending therapy to others.
That’s a large part of why I made this post; to help people get some benefit from therapeutic philosophies without having to necessarily go to a therapist themelves.
Let me start by saying that I definitely don’t recommend people go to therapy anymore unless I can also offer them guidance (like with this post) in what to expect or how to spot a good therapist or what kinds of modalities are effective. There are just too many bad therapists out there. But I think your comment may be too confident in the wrong direction.
>I think people should know that when it’s been studied, there’s little evidence that talk therapy works better than getting support from a friend, family member, or other trusted person.
Would love to read a source for this, if you could point me to which study you’re referring to. To me the most interesting studies on therapeutic effectiveness focus on a particular modality, like the one I linked to in the post, whereas “therapy” as a whole is such a mixed grab-bag of different philosophies and ideas that as a generic practice, I’m definitely willing to believe that most people’s experience with it has not been particularly effective. But that doesn’t mean an “informed shopper” with a good guide can’t beat the odds.
>But anytime a person invests substantial time and money into a given strategy, there is a risk that their assessment of the results of that strategy will be affected by confirmation bias, sunk cost bias, and cognitive dissonance.
Interestingly, my experience is the opposite; people are very quick to point out when therapy didn’t work for them, particularly if they feel like they wasted a lot of time and money at it. I don’t generally see a lot of people singing the praise of therapy unless they had an outstandingly good experience with it.
>Experiment for yourself, by all means, but my experience has been that a very brief conversation, coming at the right moment, can be incredibly therapeutic. Or an in-depth conversation every few months. Or support from a friend along with all the other self-help strategies that commonly work for mental/emotional problems.
Absolutely true, for the majority of situations people are troubled by. As I said in the post, I think therapy is best meant for when nothing else seems to work, including talking to friends and family.
>If you tried therapy, you would see how great it is. Therefore, you must not have tried it, so I will dismiss your opinion.
This is indeed a dumb argument, and I’m sorry that you’ve been told that. Like I said, I’ve often heard the opposite; people with bad experiences with therapy are more likely to speak out about their bad experiences, in general, and most get sympathy for expressing how therapy didn’t work for them. I can imagine people trying to suggest that THEIR experience with therapy was particularly good and so if you just tried the modality they experienced maybe you’d change your mind, but practitioner skill also makes a huge difference, and the relationship with the practitioner is always a wildcard, so people should generally be a lot less confident when recommending therapy to others.
That’s a large part of why I made this post; to help people get some benefit from therapeutic philosophies without having to necessarily go to a therapist themelves.