15
votes
Accepted
Why is almost all therapy done as one-hour sessions weekly?
Q1 — Your Main Question — Why is almost all therapy done as one-hour sessions weekly?
The studies
Two studies attempted to observe the effects of session frequency in routine practice of ...
- 11.9k
8
votes
Accepted
Is it dangerous to take an antipsychotic drug irregularly?
Haldol (haloperidol) is mainly known for its antipsychotic properties to treat schizophrenia. It's an aged antipsychotic with a lot of side effects. Because of this, haloperidol is nowadays mostly ...
- 20.3k
7
votes
Evidence for this tapping therapy - EFT (Emotional freedom technique)
Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) is part of the energy psychology movement which draws on various forms of alternative medicine to stimulate meridian points of the body (Gaudiano, 2000). At the ...
- 345
6
votes
Accepted
Does the brain have a 'debugging mode'?
Short answer: Not a debugger, but possibly a control flow override.
Long answer:
This is a common fallacy known as the introspection illusion:
The introspection illusion is a cognitive bias in ...
- 18.8k
6
votes
Does EMDR legitimately treat any condition?
TLDR: EMDR seems to be equally efficacious to other therapies.
Davidson & Parker, (2001) conducted a meta-analysis.
Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR), a controversial ...
- 11.9k
6
votes
Accepted
Why do therapists need therapy?
As pointed out in another answer of mine, therapists are not immune to psychological problems. In fact, one study shows the lifetime rate of depression in psychologists and social workers to be higher ...
- 11.9k
4
votes
Accepted
Negative thoughts as cause or consequence of depression
Short answer
The cause of depression is thought to be one of neurochemistry, resulting in depressive thoughts.
Background
I think the general consensus is that depression is a psychological ...
- 20.3k
4
votes
What criteria decides whether a technique is CBT?
What is CBT?
As I stated in my answer to a previous question on CBT,
The basic concept of CBT
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) was developed by Aaron Temkin Beck, and as mentioned before, ...
- 11.9k
4
votes
Accepted
What qualitative studies are there into mindfulness?
Wikipedia often provides references to scientific studies and the Wikipedia article on Mindfulness is no exception.
The main section of the article has
...Studies have also shown that rumination ...
- 11.9k
4
votes
Effects of treatment versus psychotherapy on mental health of transgender people
TL;DR: There's many studies which point to better mental health outcomes as a result of treatment, such as hormones and surgery, of transgender individuals.
It's also important to consider that there'...
4
votes
Effects of treatment versus psychotherapy on mental health of transgender people
Johns Hopkins did stop doing gender reassignment surgery and one of their psychiatrists apparently says that
The suicide rate among transgendered people who had the surgery is 20 times higher
He ...
- 11.9k
4
votes
How to compare effectiveness of psychological treatment for psychological illness, versus medical treatment for medical illness?
You asked:
Is there a way to compare treatments for medical vs psychological issues?
I would say no because we aren't looking to compare medical treatments to psychological treatments. It isn't ...
- 299
4
votes
What is the scientific evaluation of Rapid Transformational Therapy?
There are no research papers on RTT present on Google Scholar.
Therefore, I think it is straightforward to presume that it has not been scientifically evaluated, which makes any claim whatsoever about ...
- 6,759
4
votes
What is the scientific evaluation of Rapid Transformational Therapy?
RTT's online forum was used to enquire as to whether there was any peer reviewed literature supporting RTT. RTT's company lawyer replied with:
There are no current published papers on RTT that we ...
- 1,688
4
votes
Precisely, what does it mean for a person to overcome psychological trauma?
It is often said that therapy or meeting a psychologist allows one to overcome trauma and let go of hidden pains...what would mean for a person to be psychologically troubled?
Trauma is an emotional ...
- 11.9k
3
votes
Evidence for this tapping therapy - EFT (Emotional freedom technique)
Reading the answer from @HallsofJustice, the report from Gaudiano & Herbert JD (2000) was a Skeptical Inquirer report, and as the name suggests, their reports contain the extreme end of skepticism....
- 11.9k
3
votes
Accepted
Is low self-esteem, a brain chemical imbalance problem, rather than a personality defect, and can't be fixed by any amount of counselling/self-help?
Low self-esteem can be the result of severeal things, implying depression and other mental disorders, past experiences (harassement for example). We can "fix" low self-esteem through non-drug therapy, ...
- 46
3
votes
Does the brain have a 'debugging mode'?
Some types of meditation (when successful) can bring about states that can certainly be used for debugging purposes. One of the key factors is the ability to relax enough while maintaining sufficient ...
- 831
3
votes
Accepted
Effectiveness of aversion therapy for procrastination
From a 2014 review article on procrastination that doesn't mention aversive therapy at all, but has this to say about treatment(s) of procrastination in general:
Even though procrastination can ...
- 10k
3
votes
Evidence for this tapping therapy - EFT (Emotional freedom technique)
I was skeptical that such a seemingly pseudoscientific technique could work but a recent systematic review of randomized clinical trials and meta-analyses found that EFT was in fact an evidence based ...
- 31
3
votes
Accepted
Recovery program alternatives to the 12-step program
Alternatives to the Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) Twelve-Step Program
While AA is certainly a leading (and, in the US, the dominant) self-help recovery program for alcoholism and is noted for its ...
- 491
2
votes
Why are counsellors not supposed to give advice or lead the client? Is it possible for a counsellor not to be leading?
Counselors can be taught to "not give advice" and there are good reasons for this school of thought. But in professional practice such passivity is only one style among many counselors may choose. If ...
- 29
2
votes
Negative thoughts as cause or consequence of depression
Short answer:
Negative thoughts in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy are both a cause and a consequence in depression. In fact if these thoughts are produced by schemes this theory considers as a specific ...
- 1,059
2
votes
Accepted
Do the feelings related to Transference always originate from parents?
Short answer
Transference is often related to feelings felt toward parents, but not always.
Background
Transference (Hughes & Kerr, 2000) is
the phenomenon whereby we unconsciously transfer ...
- 20.3k
2
votes
Accepted
What happened to self-administered aversion therapy (with a rubber band in particular)?
Out of the basically four possible ways to change behaviors, your rubber band lies at one extreme, being an example of positive punishment, which works by presenting an aversive stimulus after an ...
- 20.3k
2
votes
Accepted
Is "havening" pseudo-scientific or effective?
First off, I am not familiar with this therapy. There seems to be 251 hits on Scholar (excluding citations and patents) at the time of this writing with a search for "Havening Technique'. Of these 251,...
- 20.3k
2
votes
Why are we generating wrong ideas in the first place?
I suspect we adopt irrational positions when we have an implicit choice available and our frame of mind, owing to biological factors such as stress hormone levels, favors rapid choices over thoughtful ...
- 21
2
votes
Accepted
Can a friend become a therapist?
The article you linked to (Holmes, 2018) is talking about both senarios. The therapist must not be a friend before or during therapy sessions. Dual relationships can interfere with the efficiency of ...
- 11.9k
2
votes
Evidence for this tapping therapy - EFT (Emotional freedom technique)
There is strong evidence for EFT for depression. A metaanalysis Nelms & Castel (2016) found 20 studies including 12 randomised controlled trials (RCTs) and 8 outcome studies. 461 participants were ...
- 1,059
2
votes
What is an example of a type of talk therapy in which the therapist acts like a teacher and the patient is viewed as a student?
I have often heard people say that they believe counselling involves the therapist being a teacher and the client is to be taught how to deal with their situation. This is a false premise for reasons ...
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Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible