Psychobabble

A lot of providers will tell you their treatment is "evidence-based" just as a selling point, I believe. I struggle to believe that their treatment works 100% of the time, even 70% of the time would be pushing the envelope.


But what does the treatment "working" mean? That is kind of where the distinction between evidence-based and I suppose "non-evidence-based" treatment breaks down.


I believe it's up to each individual to decide whether their treatment is "working." All in all, there are not too many objective measures in psychology. And that's fine, in my opinion. It's not a hard science.

There is no need to philosophise about the meaning of "it works".

Evidence based doesn't mean the treatment works for 100% or even for 70% of clients. You might want to look up what it actually means.

The approach for ensuring objective feedback that I've read about uses databases compiled from observations about many clients and their progress in therapy. And then you as the particular client are given e.g. questionnaires about your symptoms periodically, and the changes in your symptoms are regularly compared to these databases to see how well the treatment is working if at all. I would say that's plenty objective even considering how psychology is a young science and all that and is much better than having nothing at all. After all, without actual symptoms, how do you tell there is a problem anyway? So those are measurable and you can evaluate progress based on enough experience is the idea. This has been done before, but apparently too many (?!) therapists don't like the idea of objective feedback. Lol. Even though it would help improve their approach, too.

There's also been enough research to show that therapists are usually biased about the treatment working, because they don't think of checking for problems. So that's also very important to keep in mind. Don't listen to therapists, listen to yourself as a client when it comes to how well the treatment has been working or if it's been working at all. You can note down for yourself how your symptoms have been changing, and evaluate them, even without these databases. Using objective data as evidence is recommended anyway when working with feelings e.g. if you are depressed and think that doing x will not make you feel better, you can try doing that thing and you can track how you feel on a scale, in each relevant situation. And what it shows might surprise you.

I could go on and on but yeah, it is just important to keep objective in psychology as with anything else. Even when you are working with feelings. Or it will all just get completely ungrounded and there will be risk of being exposed to quackery.

I'm not referring to databases of clients, questionnaires about your symptoms or providing feedback to your therapist. When I use the term "evidence-based", I'm referring to the use of scientific studies hoping to prove that a specific treatment will help with a particular issue. Both proof and evidence-based have been mentioned several times in this thread. Maybe we're not thinking of the same thing. No one told me that it's highly overrated. That's an opinion I came to on my own after reading about the topic, my own experiences with the main modality that is considered evidence-based (CBT), and my own experiences with my therapist while seeing him for trauma and depression. That being said, CBT might be the perfect thing for another client; we're all different people after all.

Here's a good article that lays out some of the problems with evidence-based psychotherapy.

The Problems With Evidence-Based Psychotherapy - Dr. David Godot (Long Beach, CA)

Please read my previous posts more carefully then because I wasn't equating the evidence based approach to objective feedback. Even though that's also very important.

If you really honestly think it's "highly overrated", I would say you need to educate yourself more on the overall issue.

It's absolutely not just CBT. It's any therapy that has been shown to have actual effect. There are several such therapies, CBT, DBT, ACT, MCBT....

Which absolutely does not mean some kind of irresponsible promise that these therapies will help everyone with the particular issue. I personally think that more therapy approaches need to be established. Like the approach I mentioned earlier.

So, all in all, I don't understand how you got to that conclusion. Sounds like your conclusion comes from some kind of disappointment after having high hopes. Or maybe you read up on the topic from questionable sources

The main and most important thing is, we can't just say we should do psychology without looking at what actually works. The claim that focusing on evidence is bullsh--, that would be a step back to the Middle Ages and would just cause harm and damage. I'm not joking. This is a very serious issue.

If you want to say more on why or how you think it's bullsh--, feel free to.

Yeah, I kind of agree actually. I think when I posted that I was just mad at my old psychiatrist (whom I disliked) who ironically said his treatment was "evidence-based." I mean, there's nothing wrong with having evidence-based treatment, of course.

We're on the same page, I just felt like being a contrarian for some reason.