[ExI] Long-term Psychodynamic Psychotherapy turns out to beeffective...

Lee Corbin lcorbin at rawbw.com
Fri Oct 3 05:25:09 UTC 2008


Stathis writes

> 2008/10/2 Emlyn <emlynoregan at gmail.com>:
>> ... according to this meta study. Surprising!
>> http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/300/13/1551?etoc
> 
> The trials for the most part compare psychodynamic (i.e., Freudian)
> psychotherapy with a waiting list or short term psychotherapy control.
> They don't compare psychodynamic psychotherapy with a similar number
> of contact hours of so-called supportive psychotherapy with a doctor,
> psychologist, social worker or other mental health professional.

Or with extra, additional contact with friends, neighbors, and family.

> It makes sense that this sort of contact will have some beneficial
> effect, but it doesn't follow that psychodynamic psychotherapy will
> have any additional benefit.

I'm pretty skeptical too.

But I'm very glad this came up, because I distinctly remember (from
perhaps 25 years ago or so) a study in which four sets of randomly
chosen patients were treated by

   1.  psychotherapists
   2.  doctors
   3.  nurses, or social workers, or some such (don't recall)
   4.  left alone

The results were that the patients improved directly in the opposite
order! Has anyone ever heard or read about such a study? Or
one that would disconfirm it?

To me, the conclusions of this old study (that I think I read) make
sense because people get better very often when their minds just
turn to other things, and they get on with life. But the more that
someone's *problem* is identified and openly dwelt upon by 
a trained professional, the more the person is convinced that,
to put it bluntly, he's really is crazy.

Lee




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