7 ms·

Do we have evidence that "professional" help results in better outcomes than otherwise? I've not seen such evidence, so if someone has hard evidence I'd love to

Do we have evidence that "professional" help results in better outcomes than otherwise? I've not seen such evidence, so if someone has hard evidence I'd love to see it. I'm sure many psychiatrists assert this to be true (pay us, don't use free resources!), but an RCT would be great.

pif 10y ago
I don't know in general, but I'm discovering a new life thanks to doctors. The psychologist helped a bit; the first psychiatrist and some chemistry helped much more; the second psychiatrist and less of the same drug made a miracle. I couldn't even imagine life without panic attacks, and there it is!
wu-ikkyu 10y ago
I too share your doubt, however psychology is a "soft science"[1], so you will not find much "hard evidence". [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_and_soft_science https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_and_soft_science
- yummyfajitas 10y ago
  Step 1: Define your field as a soft science and call yourself a professional. Charge $100/hour. Step 2: Convince customers/government to give you "parity" with hard sciences (c.f. "mental health parity" in Obamacare, etc), in spite of providing no hard scientific evidence. Step 3: Profit.
  - openasocket 10y ago
    It's not like psychology chose to be a soft science, it just is because providing the hard scientific evidence required is either impossible, unethical, or both. To prove psychotherapy is effective for depression, you would have to gather up thousands of people with clinical depression, give half therapy and let the others go it alone, which raises serious ethical questions and makes it difficult to find volunteers. And that's just a regular study, how would you go about making a blind study? For pills you can just use a sugar pill, what's the placebo form of therapy? Do you just have a random lay person pretend to be a therapist? Doesn't that raise all kinds of ethical questions? So we have to content ourselves with correlation studies
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    - yummyfajitas 10y ago
      To prove psychotherapy is effective for depression, you would have to gather up thousands of people with clinical depression, give half therapy and let the others go it alone, which raises serious ethical questions and makes it difficult to find volunteers This is no different from an RCT drug trial. I agree that a blind study is impossible. But yes, I would still love to see randomized trials comparing an actor to a real psychiatrist (as well as to nothing at all). At the very least, if actors are equally effective, we can save billions of dollars by replacing expensive psychiatrists with struggling actors. The problem with correlation studies - particularly for subjective in-my-head issues - is that the thing which causes people to see a shrink might also be causing them to get better.
      - openasocket 10y ago
        I'd really recommend the link another poster gave: http://www.apa.org/about/policy/resolution-psychotherapy.aspx http://www.apa.org/about/policy/resolution-psychotherapy.asp... There's a lot of studies listed there, including a bunch of RCTs, mostly comparing different types of therapy. I couldn't find any attempting to use a "placebo" therapy, but I only really skimmed it. Does that help?
      - wu-ikkyu 10y ago
        Your original post that I wanted to reply to walk flagged so ill do so here. You might like this lecture by Alan Watts: >While there are indeed individuals who are certainly able to perform psychotherapy, it is the sheerest arrogance for anybody to say that he is officially qualified to do so. We do not know how it is done, just as we do no know how musical, literary, and artistic genius is done. Alan Watts - Western Psychology vs World Religions https://youtu.be/-LzJlTCaV9U https://youtu.be/-LzJlTCaV9U
  - rmxt 10y ago
    Glad to see that self-congratulatory snark and drive-by skepticism is alive and well! The amount of time it took to post this could have instead been devoted to finding research of the type you supposedly seek in good-faith. Starting point that contains cites: http://www.apa.org/about/policy/resolution-psychotherapy.aspx http://www.apa.org/about/policy/resolution-psychotherapy.asp...
    - yummyfajitas 10y ago
      Thanks, will take a look. Do you know of a more science-focused link that focuses strictly on high quality experimental evidence? This link might have useful information, but it seems mixed up with a lot of low quality science, ethical stuff, advocacy and other things. Hard to find the good stuff without reading a lot of random unrelated papers.
  - mcguire 10y ago
    Do you want to volunteer for an experimental psychological regime?
    - camtarn 10y ago
      I was walking past a hospital notice board the other day, and there were in fact quite a few notices about experimental psychological treatments for particular conditions. Some of them looked like they were trying to find drug-free ways to control conditions that would normally have had drugs thrown at them. Seems like a noble aim, and I do hope people took them up on the studies.
mercer 10y ago
It really depends on the kind of mental health issue and the kind of solution. As I understand it the 'standard' treatment for phobias and panic attacks, for example, is extremely effective compared to 1) earlier psychotherapy approaches, and 2) no treatment. CBT more generally seems to have decent rates of efficacy, at least with things like anxiety disorders. And at least based on my personal experience and a handful of people I know, it often proved effective where earlier psychotherapy was not, where a good social support system was not, and where doing nothing led to the increasing anxiety levels in the first place. That said, I'm skeptical of a lot of things in the field, so I don't want to sound like I'm fully defending it. EDIT: apologies for not providing hard evidence. One book that references studies in regards to this issue is "What You Can Change and What You Can't" by Martin Seligman, but I don't have it nearby.
AndrewDucker 10y ago
There's a lot of evidence, in various directions: http://www.bacp.co.uk/research/resources/ http://www.bacp.co.uk/research/resources/

pif 10y ago

I don't know in general, but I'm discovering a new life thanks to doctors. The psychologist helped a bit; the first psychiatrist and some chemistry helped much more; the second psychiatrist and less of the same drug made a miracle. I couldn't even imagine life without panic attacks, and there it is!

wu-ikkyu 10y ago

I too share your doubt, however psychology is a "soft science"[1], so you will not find much "hard evidence". [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_and_soft_science https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_and_soft_science

yummyfajitas 10y ago
Step 1: Define your field as a soft science and call yourself a professional. Charge $100/hour. Step 2: Convince customers/government to give you "parity" with hard sciences (c.f. "mental health parity" in Obamacare, etc), in spite of providing no hard scientific evidence. Step 3: Profit.
- openasocket 10y ago
  It's not like psychology chose to be a soft science, it just is because providing the hard scientific evidence required is either impossible, unethical, or both. To prove psychotherapy is effective for depression, you would have to gather up thousands of people with clinical depression, give half therapy and let the others go it alone, which raises serious ethical questions and makes it difficult to find volunteers. And that's just a regular study, how would you go about making a blind study? For pills you can just use a sugar pill, what's the placebo form of therapy? Do you just have a random lay person pretend to be a therapist? Doesn't that raise all kinds of ethical questions? So we have to content ourselves with correlation studies
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - yummyfajitas 10y ago
    To prove psychotherapy is effective for depression, you would have to gather up thousands of people with clinical depression, give half therapy and let the others go it alone, which raises serious ethical questions and makes it difficult to find volunteers This is no different from an RCT drug trial. I agree that a blind study is impossible. But yes, I would still love to see randomized trials comparing an actor to a real psychiatrist (as well as to nothing at all). At the very least, if actors are equally effective, we can save billions of dollars by replacing expensive psychiatrists with struggling actors. The problem with correlation studies - particularly for subjective in-my-head issues - is that the thing which causes people to see a shrink might also be causing them to get better.
    - openasocket 10y ago
      I'd really recommend the link another poster gave: http://www.apa.org/about/policy/resolution-psychotherapy.aspx http://www.apa.org/about/policy/resolution-psychotherapy.asp... There's a lot of studies listed there, including a bunch of RCTs, mostly comparing different types of therapy. I couldn't find any attempting to use a "placebo" therapy, but I only really skimmed it. Does that help?
    - wu-ikkyu 10y ago
      Your original post that I wanted to reply to walk flagged so ill do so here. You might like this lecture by Alan Watts: >While there are indeed individuals who are certainly able to perform psychotherapy, it is the sheerest arrogance for anybody to say that he is officially qualified to do so. We do not know how it is done, just as we do no know how musical, literary, and artistic genius is done. Alan Watts - Western Psychology vs World Religions https://youtu.be/-LzJlTCaV9U https://youtu.be/-LzJlTCaV9U
- rmxt 10y ago
  Glad to see that self-congratulatory snark and drive-by skepticism is alive and well! The amount of time it took to post this could have instead been devoted to finding research of the type you supposedly seek in good-faith. Starting point that contains cites: http://www.apa.org/about/policy/resolution-psychotherapy.aspx http://www.apa.org/about/policy/resolution-psychotherapy.asp...
  - yummyfajitas 10y ago
    Thanks, will take a look. Do you know of a more science-focused link that focuses strictly on high quality experimental evidence? This link might have useful information, but it seems mixed up with a lot of low quality science, ethical stuff, advocacy and other things. Hard to find the good stuff without reading a lot of random unrelated papers.
- mcguire 10y ago
  Do you want to volunteer for an experimental psychological regime?
  - camtarn 10y ago
    I was walking past a hospital notice board the other day, and there were in fact quite a few notices about experimental psychological treatments for particular conditions. Some of them looked like they were trying to find drug-free ways to control conditions that would normally have had drugs thrown at them. Seems like a noble aim, and I do hope people took them up on the studies.

mercer 10y ago

It really depends on the kind of mental health issue and the kind of solution. As I understand it the 'standard' treatment for phobias and panic attacks, for example, is extremely effective compared to 1) earlier psychotherapy approaches, and 2) no treatment. CBT more generally seems to have decent rates of efficacy, at least with things like anxiety disorders. And at least based on my personal experience and a handful of people I know, it often proved effective where earlier psychotherapy was not, where a good social support system was not, and where doing nothing led to the increasing anxiety levels in the first place. That said, I'm skeptical of a lot of things in the field, so I don't want to sound like I'm fully defending it. EDIT: apologies for not providing hard evidence. One book that references studies in regards to this issue is "What You Can Change and What You Can't" by Martin Seligman, but I don't have it nearby.

AndrewDucker 10y ago

There's a lot of evidence, in various directions: http://www.bacp.co.uk/research/resources/ http://www.bacp.co.uk/research/resources/