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This is wrong and you do many people a disservice who might read this and think it doesn't work. I don't know where you're getting this and the article in no wa

This is wrong and you do many people a disservice who might read this and think it doesn't work. I don't know where you're getting this and the article in no way supports your stance. From the article: Engaging in a course of well-tested psychotherapy, according to the new analysis, gives them an added 20 percent chance of achieving an even more satisfying improvement, or lasting recovery. An added 20 percent chance. Don't forget they're already saying that talking therapy is only 25% less effective than originally thought. They are still saying that talking therapy is effective! And at no point do they compare it to placebo. The very article we're talking about: 1) Disagrees with your extremist stance 2) Never mentions it nearing placebo level 3) You probably didn't read it as you didn't address it CBT, for example, is known to be particularly effective when dealing with anxiety as well as dealing with secondary symptoms and making people's lives better. It has an effect WAY above placebo. So why did you say this? Are you actively attempting to make people's lives worse by putting them off therapy? Also from the article: for those who do well or fully recover, “psychotherapy, particularly cognitive behavior therapy, seems to be most effective in cutting the risk for a relapse long-term,” Dr. Hollon [one of the co-authors] said.

brookside 11y ago
They are still saying that talking therapy is effective! The most generous interpretation of figures in this article is that NNTT for depression and therapy is 5. Meaning one out of every five people treated by therapy will show some improvement due to effects of therapy itself. We can certainly call this effective in that there is an effect for some people who try therapy. But not for 80% of them. Therapy is a 10 billion dollar/year industry in the United States, with its practitioners often charging desperately unhappy people high rates (beyond what most of us lucky software devs make), with no advantage to show for their various methodologies beyond what one gets from talking to an untrained stranger. Financially successful yet largely bogus businesses and industries are never going to put themselves out of business and have little impetus to change the status quo. Awareness of the current poor options for mental health treatment is important. However uncomfortable or against an established narrative of "help is out there' it is to address these realities, it will be easier to marshall efforts to finding real mental health solutions if we aren't pretending the current paradigms are working when the numbers show otherwise.
- mattmanser 11y ago
  Nowhere did it say only 20% are helped. It says 20% more effective with other treatments. Either you're not reading or you're not comprehending. I'm sorry therapy didn't work for you or you didn't want to try it, but I'm not sure what your agenda is. You seem to have some weird axe to grind about people making money. I'm not sure what else I can say as you seem to want to believe the whole thing's a big rip-off. Like where does the claim that untrained listeners are as good as trained ones come from?
  - brookside 11y ago
    Making money is fantastic. Making money from desperate people with pseudoscience is bad. 20% more effective with other treatments. Not what the article says. (It is most unclearly worded.) You have a 20% greater chance of improvement with therapy above talking to a doctor (Note there no pharmaceutical course of action mentioned) not "with other treatment". My comparison of therapy to untrained listeners is not drawn from the article. There have been several studies done on this. Link to the one of first on google: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.469.4634&rep=rep1&type=pdf http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.469...
    - mattmanser 11y ago
      Paraprofessionals are still trained. If that were about medicine that paper would be saying 'can we use a nurse instead of a doctor', not 'can we use anyone instead of a doctor'. Is that what you're angry about?

brookside 11y ago

They are still saying that talking therapy is effective! The most generous interpretation of figures in this article is that NNTT for depression and therapy is 5. Meaning one out of every five people treated by therapy will show some improvement due to effects of therapy itself. We can certainly call this effective in that there is an effect for some people who try therapy. But not for 80% of them. Therapy is a 10 billion dollar/year industry in the United States, with its practitioners often charging desperately unhappy people high rates (beyond what most of us lucky software devs make), with no advantage to show for their various methodologies beyond what one gets from talking to an untrained stranger. Financially successful yet largely bogus businesses and industries are never going to put themselves out of business and have little impetus to change the status quo. Awareness of the current poor options for mental health treatment is important. However uncomfortable or against an established narrative of "help is out there' it is to address these realities, it will be easier to marshall efforts to finding real mental health solutions if we aren't pretending the current paradigms are working when the numbers show otherwise.

mattmanser 11y ago
Nowhere did it say only 20% are helped. It says 20% more effective with other treatments. Either you're not reading or you're not comprehending. I'm sorry therapy didn't work for you or you didn't want to try it, but I'm not sure what your agenda is. You seem to have some weird axe to grind about people making money. I'm not sure what else I can say as you seem to want to believe the whole thing's a big rip-off. Like where does the claim that untrained listeners are as good as trained ones come from?
- brookside 11y ago
  Making money is fantastic. Making money from desperate people with pseudoscience is bad. 20% more effective with other treatments. Not what the article says. (It is most unclearly worded.) You have a 20% greater chance of improvement with therapy above talking to a doctor (Note there no pharmaceutical course of action mentioned) not "with other treatment". My comparison of therapy to untrained listeners is not drawn from the article. There have been several studies done on this. Link to the one of first on google: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.469.4634&rep=rep1&type=pdf http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.469...
  - mattmanser 11y ago
    Paraprofessionals are still trained. If that were about medicine that paper would be saying 'can we use a nurse instead of a doctor', not 'can we use anyone instead of a doctor'. Is that what you're angry about?