To answer your question, yes. Yes I think therapy works. It is important that you find a therapist with experience treating your specific concerns. It is also important that you are as honest as you can be with your therapist. And, that you don't give up on therapy before it has a chance to work. However, some psychotherapy may not work at all. As pachyderm said, "psychotherapy" is undefined. Many people don't treat problems in a way that works. Some people are not really good at this job. Keep looking until you find someone who sits right with you. Then, work your butt off and see what happens.
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Originally Posted by pachyderm
For me, a really major problem is that "psychotherapy" is undefined. The word tells you nothing about what actually happens in therapy, does not distinguish what makes a successful therapy as opposed to an unsuccessful one. I think this is a fault of mental health professionals: they have not really determined what works and why -- and they do not admit this.
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It is true that many do not. But there is a large subset of somewhat "subversive" research psychologists who are seeking out "process variables" - what are the
mechanisms of change in therapy? They admit we don't know why what works, works. And I plan to join them in seeking out these answers. I want to be a clinical research psychologist. I want to help find a way to measure the therapeutic process in a valid way. I want to improve the way therapy is done in the community.
I want people to get help that WORKS. So, I want to know HOW it works! This is my dream.. I will do everything I can to achieve this. One of the reasons I love PC is that there is so much process data here. Knowing how others experience therapy.. this will give me great insight when I am attempting to quantify the therapeutic process. It is
quite a daunting task.
Here's the thing: no one wants to fund research on process variables. It's not the fault of mental health professionals. This is the fault of funding agencies who just won't fund this research!