3 ms·

Causal statement in the headline. You might think only correlational statement on paper, and this is somewhat true but it is a controlled ecologicalish study.

Causal statement in the headline. You might think only correlational statement on paper, and this is somewhat true but it is a controlled ecologicalish study. no random assignment. bad temporal proximity of data gathering on personality. methodological poking about at the badness of controlled vs observational studies. basically study recruitment as a selection effect.

maxander 10y ago
They do perform a statistical analysis ("propensity score matching") to try to control for off-target correlations, but its true that the entire strength of the paper revolves around this having been done correctly and it being sufficient. Given the fact that improperly controlling for confounding factors could entirely account for their data (people whose personality traits are deteriorating are likely to have some awareness of this, and therefore to seek therapy) you would think that an account of this procedure would be front-in-center of their argument- but no, all details of that step are relegated to supplemental data for some reason. It's also worth noting that data collection was entirely done through surveys; so, another explanation could be that therapy simply made people more aware of pre-existing personality deficits, that they were then able to more accurately report. And further, even if the results are valid, it doesn't invalidate the benefits of therapy; most therapy methods are built around helping the patient. Its possible that therapy improves the subjective quality of the patient's life at the expense of some external qualities (or pretense thereof.)
- civilian 10y ago
  > Its possible that therapy improves the subjective quality of the patient's life at the expense of some external qualities (or pretense thereof.) That's not the case-- they were measuring for subjective quality, and it was subjective quality that declined. I posted the PDF of the paper in my top-level comment, but the Psychological measurements they were looking at in the German cohort were self-esteem, life satisfaction, and depression. The US cohort was measured for self-esteem, chronic stressors, and depression.
sctb 10y ago
Thanks, we've updated the headline from “On average, psychotherapy brings about undesirable changes in personality”.
- KingMob 10y ago
  Huh? I don't have access to the full article; is it about therapy in general or psychotherapy in particular?
ouid 10y ago
not to mention that an equally explanatory representation of the data is: "Pathological behavior is correlated with worsening pathological behavior"
- curuinor 10y ago
  Not as explanatory. There would have been no difference from the ecological control then

maxander 10y ago

They do perform a statistical analysis ("propensity score matching") to try to control for off-target correlations, but its true that the entire strength of the paper revolves around this having been done correctly and it being sufficient. Given the fact that improperly controlling for confounding factors could entirely account for their data (people whose personality traits are deteriorating are likely to have some awareness of this, and therefore to seek therapy) you would think that an account of this procedure would be front-in-center of their argument- but no, all details of that step are relegated to supplemental data for some reason. It's also worth noting that data collection was entirely done through surveys; so, another explanation could be that therapy simply made people more aware of pre-existing personality deficits, that they were then able to more accurately report. And further, even if the results are valid, it doesn't invalidate the benefits of therapy; most therapy methods are built around helping the patient. Its possible that therapy improves the subjective quality of the patient's life at the expense of some external qualities (or pretense thereof.)

civilian 10y ago
> Its possible that therapy improves the subjective quality of the patient's life at the expense of some external qualities (or pretense thereof.) That's not the case-- they were measuring for subjective quality, and it was subjective quality that declined. I posted the PDF of the paper in my top-level comment, but the Psychological measurements they were looking at in the German cohort were self-esteem, life satisfaction, and depression. The US cohort was measured for self-esteem, chronic stressors, and depression.

sctb 10y ago

Thanks, we've updated the headline from “On average, psychotherapy brings about undesirable changes in personality”.

KingMob 10y ago
Huh? I don't have access to the full article; is it about therapy in general or psychotherapy in particular?

ouid 10y ago

not to mention that an equally explanatory representation of the data is: "Pathological behavior is correlated with worsening pathological behavior"

curuinor 10y ago
Not as explanatory. There would have been no difference from the ecological control then