Quote:
Originally Posted by maybeblue
If you were going to write an "informed consent form" to let new clients know the potential risks of going to psychotherapy, what would you put on it? Do you think that there is a good way to quantify those risks? As in percentage of people who are harmed vs. helped?
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I don't know that they want to do that...if only because I read somewhere recently that studies show that only about 50% of clients get benefit from therapy. (I will try to find it.) Studies also show that clients who have actually made only modest gains in therapy often believe they have made enormous strides. (Another difference from stockbrokers is you can actually assess a broker's performance, by how much you have gained, or by ratings by financial publications.)
The informed consent forms I have signed do say that therapy can cause things like uncomfortable feelings, but they also make it sound like these are temporary side-effects, when they may very well not be. And that's before you even touch the competence or lack thereof of the therapist.