Wes LJul 23, 2023

I shared my most recent post from here about EMDR on Facebook as well, and had an old Psychology professor of mine (my favorite in my bachelor's program) commented about being wary of placebo effect and anecdotal, self-reported evidence, about how relational factors seem to play a key role in outcomes, and about the importance of controlled studies and research design.

Of course he's right in many ways. Well-designed, controlled research is incredibly important, and I will be reviewing much more research on EMDR for myself. Like I said, I'm definitely on the analytical side of things, especially for a counselor. However...

As I've said here before, despite how much many practitioners and academics would like to believe therapy is a hard science that should be approached the same way as modern medicine, it simply is not, and the sooner we move past that false association the better off psychotherapy as a field of practice will be.
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Show threadWes LJul 23, 2023
The fact is that mental unhealth is often not measurable. I've heard so many stories of people suffering from various mental problems going to their doctors and being told that there's nothing wrong with them. Mental health ultimately exists in our heads. These problems are self-reported, period. If you have tens/hundreds of thousands of people self-reporting the alleviation of these problems every year, I have to be honest, I don't much care what research says. Not that I won't read it and consider it, but you can't tell me that that magnitude of anecdotal evidence would be worthless if a well-designed, controlled study showed that the results can't be replicated in whatever sample size they used (unless it's one bigass sample).
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Show threadWes LJul 23, 2023

Also, he talked about the strong effects of therapeutic relationship as if it's something we should be wary of. My reaction to his well-stated facts was, "Isn't it fascinating how healing a trusting, supportive relationship can be? Shouldn't more therapists, doctors, and other practitioners be emphasizing this?"

Modern science has a very important place in therapeutic approaches, and I value it highly, but it is not the end-all.
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Show threadWes L
This, BTW, is part of why I went into the field of Counseling, specifically, and not Psychology, a decision that came out of a conversation with this exact professor, a decision that he supported, and I will forever be grateful to Dr. Pfaff for that.
Jul 23, 2023 at 12:42pmWeb
Show threadWes LJul 23, 2023
Update: NVM. He's woke (as a compliment). Should have known I could count on Dr. Pfaff.