Tuesday, December 19, 2023

Why Couples Therapy Never Works

YouTuber psychologist PsyHacks explains:
I might take some heat for this one, but I'm not a big fan of couples therapy -- mostly because I haven't seen it associated with a very high rate of success. In this episode, I give several reasons why this may be the case, and argue that -- if therapy is needed -- most issues can be more productively addressed in individual counseling. It's very hard to tell the truth that one person can hear; it's almost impossible to tell the truth that two people can hear simultaneously.
In short, there is a myth that relationship problems are caused by a lack of communication, and that they can be solved by a counselor recommending compromises. But communication is almost never the problem, and compromise almost never the solution.

There are some people who say that they were helped, but they probably helped themselves and would have done better without the therapy.

Conventional wisdom is that all psycho therapy is good for you, unless it is directed at normal sexual feelings, which is so objectionable that some states ban it. But that is not so simple, as Joy Pullman writes:

Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear a challenge to 26 state laws at least partly based on studies claiming “conversion therapy” increases LGBT Americans’ suicide risks. Yet every existing study that makes this claim is seriously scientifically unsound, several research reviews recently found.

Not only do all these studies depend on unscientific methods, but the data from one highly cited such study actually shows the opposite of what its authors claim, says a sociologist who reran the study’s data with standard scientific controls the authors omitted.

“The evidence shows that SOCE [sexual orientation change efforts] is fairly effective at preventing suicide attempts,” said Paul Sullins, a research professor at Catholic University and senior researcher for the Ruth Institute, in a press conference released Friday.

So the psychotherapy that works is banned, and the harmful psychotherapy is encouraged.

Almost all psychotherapists are in on this scam. You may think that you know a good one, but I doubt it.

1 comment:

CFT said...

Psychology is basically a 'Mc Work' profession which is primarily designed to employ people who would otherwise not be in the medical profession. It is incredibly soft as far as science goes, and if you read up on its incredibly short history you will be absolutely horrified to find out how often the treatments did far more harm than good.


When I took an abnormal psychology class back in the day, I was struck by the fact that no matter what treatment was tried (psychotherapy, drugs, counseling, just leave them alone in a stable peaceful environment), the results were about the same. I mentioned to the teacher that the fact that radically different treatments all had about the same success ratio throughout psychology's short history, and it never seemed to change despite various treatments constantly being discarded or replaced as they fell out of vogue, or were abandoned entirely.

Psychology is a profession that can literally create and destroy entire diseases with the stroke of a pen. Remember when female hysteria was a thing? Anyone recall the wonderous times when labotomies were a panacea for all sorts of entirely unrelated ills, including criminal behavior up to and including homosexuality? Looking at the wrong gender?? Try frying the patients brain with electricity and make the gay go away. Anyone forgotten the 'multiple personality disorder' that turned out to be a fabrication yet so many people suffered from it... after hearing about it from it being a constant trope on television?

Now days we are far more civilized of course, we have doctors in lovely white coats (also called actors if you read the tiny print) proscribing medications for almost everything a hypochondriac can make up. Television is smothered in drug commercials because the advertisers know people who know nothing about medicine are demanding the damn things from their physicians... and the doctors are pushing drugs like corner drug dealers rather than risking losing the patient's business.