Individualization is the way to go in terms of medical treatments (not that therapy is a medical treatment). I think standardization and applying blanket guidelines to people with so many individualized characteristics is the wrong direction, where individualizing interventions--aided by technology is the future. I realize that many of the technologies are too expensive to be clinically adopted or simply don't exist yet.

I read an article today about the concept of personal microbiomes (https://www.sciencedaily.com/release...0511162914.htm) and was fascinated to learn how an obese mouse will become thin after receiving a transplant of gut microbes from a lean mouse. It's interesting to recognize how a human microbiome is like a fingerprint--unique to everyone, but shaped or influenced by genes and the environment from conception until death.

Then I heard the news on TV, where sources reported positive economic growth, and I wondered if this would lead some to believe the growth was a direct result of the tax cuts, and was concerned the economic state would strengthen the belief in trickle-down economics, which I am opposed to. Some experts believe in it; many don't. In my opinion, if it really worked according to 'the research', then we would never have to experience recession and depression.

Which reminded me of my more recent opinion that social science research is one of the downfalls of society. Seriously. I know this is a bit eccentric, but I've recently concluded that I just don't believe in it anymore and think that the alignment of resource investment with social research findings possibly causes more harm than good. Unless concepts and thoughts can be quantified or measured by new definitions, statistics should be left to the hard sciences.

So I don't believe in this. At all.

I realize I have much less expertise in this area than some people here, but I don't believe statistics can account for psychological knowledge. I strongly believe this. There are too many errors and its impossible to account for or isolate variables. So much money is wasted on this type of research. You see it everyday in PC's headlines (eg, "Materialistic People may use Facebook more"). Article after article of useless research; much of it confirms what we already know. While it may be interesting to read about, and I understand the utility of research variety, I think it's a total waste of resources that takes away from important work in figuring out how to help people.

Social science research is so primitive; and not just psychology. It's too bad we waste so much money on doing it or implementing the findings. I would support a massive population-wide database to analyze patterns if it contained observations accurately, consistently and easily measured (ie I own a dog) inclusive of most of the population.

If you think about it, 'talk therapy' hasn't changed much since the 1800s. While our concepts we use to describe things have become more complicated or evolved, how much as really changed in practice? We talk about mirror neurons, for example, but we still sit across from a therapist and simply talk. Certainly not suprising that the entire population doesn't benefit from it. We could set up a study to measure the effect of owning a dog vs no treatment and find, if we wanted to, that subjects who own a dog have improvements in depression and anxiety and subsequently promote dog ownership. Not much different imo.

Here today--it seems like you still have trouble viewing yourself in a negative light over this; or it least it comes across that way to me. I understand how that can happen but think about it this way--something created in the 1800s didn't work well for you. What have the decades of research and statistics actually accomplished? Not much; what a waste! We have innovations in things like EMDR, neurofeedback....but how did talk therapy actually change for the better? Imagine if we still drove around with Ford Model Ts then blamed ourselves for being unproductive.

We are talking OVER 100 YEARS of research, statistics....investment and not much has changed. There are so many things that could have been created, tested, and implemented, but the industry chooses not to innovate. So much for 'social science research'.

If psychology was truly a science, wouldn't it have technological advances to show for it by now--100+ years later? Interesting that Freud was a neurologist, yet we are on the same path of former centuries. I realize psychology/clinical application/therapy etc are different constructs, so I'm speaking loosely here when I say: it is clearly not a science. So those in the field going around blaming the client for lack of positive outcomes may be ignorant and misinformed at best.

So give yourself a break.