Actually, it's behavioral therapy only, not CBT, which is cognitive-behavioral, that is helpful with specific phobias. That's why I said "virtually no scientific basis" because this particular evidence about behavioral therapy is the only scientific evidence I am aware of.

As far as all other types of therapies, no specific methods proved to be either effective or not effective precisely because they aren't amenable to being measured and, therefore, no one bothered to conduct a valid scientific research on that.

The truth is that it IS possible to conduct a serious research because it doesn't have to be based on quantifiable measures primarily. There could be a qualitative criteria established for such research. But no one bothered with this because not so many people have complained about the lack of scientific basis in psychotherapy so far. I hope this will change in the future.

By the way, the fact that there is no scientific basis for most psychotherapy methods doesn't mean they are invalid. They may or may not work in different circumstances with different people. All it means is that we don't know what works, when it works and how it works because there was no research on that.

In general, independent research is lacking in all areas because of private funding. Research has to be publicly funded in order to be truly independent and reliable.

The only thing in psychodynamic process that is an undeniable fact is that trauma is the cause of most mental disturbances. The research on that has been significant even though still not sufficient enough, primarily because for many people, including professionals, this is still an uncomfortable "controversial" topic. However, the data about trauma is registered by every social worker, medical doctor, therapist and all kinds of health practitioners, law enforcement, human rights advocates etc. The amount of data showing the direct link between all kinds of mental disorders and trauma is overwhelming and for anyone who is not willfully blind it's a fact, not a hypothesis.

It's shameful that with this amount of data, most professionals have no clue about how to work with trauma because no one took time and effort to develop methods based on proper research. The first step towards doing it and towards finding a solution is to be honest with ourselves and to admit to how little we know instead of playing a role of all-knowing experts.