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Cognitive behavioral therapy, the most common type of “talk therapy” these days, shows effectiveness on par with medications in a broad range of studies with go

• borroka 2y ago
  What kind of medications are we talking about, for what "issue" (suicidal thoughts or "my parents are disappointed because I did not go to college and I am feeling worthless") and what is the effectiveness, especially long-term, of either medication or talk therapy? I certainly present anecdotes, and I also live in this world and I notice and I observe and I evaluate. The comment I am responding to does even less. The second scam is, of course, couples counseling. I have sporadically watched Showtime's “Couples Therapy,” and I know several people who have gone to a couples therapist. The cost of a 50-minute session with the therapist presented on the show seems to be $700. After watching parts of the program, I can give my prescription to all the couples featured, free of charge: You need to break up and find someone else. It may be a collection of anecdotes, but I have yet to see a couple “fall in love again” or “settle their differences” after expensive couples counseling sessions. It's time to move on.
• Veen 2y ago
  Does that demonstrate that therapy is effective or that medications are ineffective?
  • hirvi74 2y ago
    Not the GP, but I'll comment about ADHD, since that is what I have relevantly read research about. For ADHD, it appears that therapy < medication < therapy + medication. When compared head-to-head, therapy is almost as useful as medication, but the issue with therapy is that once the patient stops attending, the benefits tend to diminish rapidly. However, therapy tends to have less side-effects and less stigma. According to some research, medication efficacy also tends to diminish overtime as well. For other conditions, I cannot tell you. I feel like it would be too large of a brush to try and paint with. I could see conditions like personality disorders not benefiting from medication as much as therapy. Conditions like schizophrenia might not truly benefit from either. For conditions like depression and anxiety, I think the medications are efficacious if not perhaps less so than therapy, but do not quote me on this one.
• robswc 2y ago
  CBT worked well for me. Unfortunately though after the first few weeks, doing the exercises and thinking about my problems seemed to reel me back into the gravitational pull of my problems right as I felt I was escaping. As you point out, its an anecdote and a sample size of one... but is a factor in my opinion.