Talk:Psychotherapy/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Distinguishing between therapy, counseling, coaching and mentoring

Therapy is usually seen as being applied to mental health or diagnosable psychiatric issues. Counselling to non-psychiatric issues, but still things that might create emotional reactions. Coaching is aimed at a goal or achieving something. Mentoring is aimed at the personal progress of a person toward some sort of status, and overall personal achievement. -- I think I'd get good marks on the exam with this explanation, but I don't know if I could find the reference from the class any more.... 03:09, 11 January 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Fremte (talk • contribs)

Counseling, at least, has lost much of this distinction, although initially I think what much of you said was true and is true to certain forms of counseling, like vocational counseling and the like. Nowadays, licensed counselors are master level clinicians, often working with psychiatric issues such as in hospitals and agencies. In general, wikipedia needs to be updated to speak to this blurring of the lines. It seems to me that clinical psychologists often spend much of their time doing testing assessments, and psychaitrists are concerned with prescribing drugs. leontes (talk) 13:39, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

The only thing I have found so far is on this page: http://www.apa.org/governance/CPM/chapter10b.html , under the heading 2007 it talks about terminology, second last topic on the page. This does not quite do the job. Fremte (talk) 16:04, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Searching for and clicking on Counseling in wikipedia redirects to Psychotherapy - these can be very different modalities though they may exist side by side in the minds of some clients and practitioners. For example, Humanistic psychology lists them side by side in section 3. Contrast this with the article at Counseling psychology, which disitnguishes clearly between a similar distinction in Psychology betweencounseling and clinical psychology. But no such clarification occurs within or between the re-direct of counseling to psychotherapy.

There are similar confusions brought about by marriage guidance being re-directed to relationship counseling. These are dissimilar when one is provided in a religious context and that provided without religious affiliation. Likewise couples therapy re-directed to relationship counseling makes little sense without a distinction been drawn between therapy and counseling.

The existence of marriage guidance counsellor as an article about the Monty Python skit is funny but not informative.

On the counselling page, if you click on Marriage and Family counseling you are re-directed to family therapy - the same confusion between counseling and therapy.

Relationship coaching is not an article on its own but it is refered to in section 4 of life coaching. Dating coach used to redirects to personal coaching and these two are related but different and properly belong in the main coaching article. Intimacy coach/ing and marital coach/ing clearly will point to a potential boundary blurring between therapy, counseling and coaching. With coaching increasing its reach to intimate relationships and with the addition of say, marriage mentoring the possibilities for turf wars are limitless.

I have also started this discussion briefly on Talk:Relationship_counseling.--Ziji 23:53, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

These are good points that somehow need addressing so that the various related pages are consistent, organized to avoid overlap or ambiguity as much as possible, and in line with the most common usage and practice. There's also an issue with overlap between clinical psychology and this page, in terms of psychotherapy content. I've just added some images to here that were (and still are also) on that page. I guess this page needs a section on differences between psychotherapy and counseling/coaching etc EverSince 19:46, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Hello this is a very important issue. I think distinguishing the various types is imortant. Perhaps there is a good typology out there. I'll do some research on this. Devonian Strata 08:21, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Hi Devonian - have you found a typology?-- Ziji  (talk)  12:12, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Shouldn't Therapist redirect to Therapy rather than Psychotherapy? Usage of the term in the UK is certainly not confined to persons with any medical or scientific qualification Mighty Antar 01:28, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Body Psychotherapy

I added Body Psychotherapy to the list of main systems of psychotherapy in the article's introduction section, however, this was reverted by another editor who didn't appreciate this as being a major field. I can only point to that article which does in fact list a considerable number of subordinate schools. So I move that this main direction should be re-included in that list, especially as body psychotherapy otherwise would go completely unmentioned in this article, and that would be an omission which I don't see how can be justified. __meco 12:49, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Other considerable 'subordinate schools' being present in this article does not justify the addition of anything else - if you don't think the others belong, then remove them as you see fit. Do you have any references for Body Psychotherapy that might suggest it is a main school of thought in psychotherapy? JoeSmack ^Talk 13:04, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

References: you could start with Pierre Janet, move on to Wilhelm Reich and David Boadella, Ida Pauline Rolf and Jon Kabat-Zinn: . and then go on to the Body Psychotherapy article and take your pick - personally I would take Ron Kurtz and Gerda Boyesen but her page too needs improvement - english citations would help in research. The body psychotherapy page is in need of urgent attention, Rolf and Kabat Zinn were not included, some linked names do not link to an article on the named person eg Ron Kurtz. I have added the mind-body interventions template and put the body psychotherapy page in that template, but much more needs to be done to improve e.g. citations for one. Doing that will increase the authority of a major field position, with which I agree. My earlier coments about distinguishing between counselling and therapy etc also apply between body psychotherapies if you consider the list in the interventions template. Even within a well defined body orientated practice, there are divisions e.g. that in Hakomi between body centred, somatic pychotherapy and experiential psychotherapy. The European Association of Body Psychotherpay is an excellent source to build the case, as is the American Assoc

To widen the authority of the field I suggest going into Alice Miller's work for starters, eg her recent book '', wherein this quote: Ultimately the body will rebel. Even if it can be temporarily pacified with the help of drugs, cigarettes or medicine, it usually has the last word because it is quicker to see through self-deception than the mind. We may ignore or deride the messages of the body, but is rebellion demands to be heeded because its language is the authentic expression of our true selves and of the strength of our vitality.

For a radical bend in the story you could go back to Freud's interest in cocaine (which began on April 24, 1884 and his interest in the nasal reflex neurosis based relationship with Fleiss (who believed that the nose was the centre of all human illness). . I haven't the time to pursue this any further at the moment, but I will come back to it after I deal with the problems at pre- and peri-natal psychology where the body begins its journey

References

--Ziji 22:16, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it seems like this is all appropriate on the body psyschology page, and the discussion should primarily be held there and possibly moved there as the page is in need of expansion, it seems to be off topic on this page, as it goes into great detail. As I understand it, body psychology is not generally considered to be a main system of psychotherapy. I am still unclear how to add it to the specific schools and approaches part of the page. The person who does should focus on a short paragraph on what is it that makes body psychology different from the other approaches. I think possibly "embodied" work, that includes spiritual psychotherapy and other forms of transpersonal or embodied approaches might be an appropraite addition. leontes 05:09, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

There is a list of psychotherapies which I think is appropriate to mention Body psychotherapy and spiritual, etc. I think the big ones however are the only ones that should be touched on here, ones that spawned like a billion others - you don't want to go on and on about a specific model of a specific year of a kind of Mustang on Ford's article, you want that on it's own article (i.e. I agree with Leontes). You also might notice Ford's article has a link to list of Ford vehicles. :) JoeSmack ^Talk 06:11, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

I will copy this across to body psychotherapy-- Ziji  (talk)  00:15, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

I do agree with Leontes that Ziji's deep-dive into the specificities of the Body psychotheraputic field is more confusing than light-shedding on the issue of whether, or rather how, this system should be presented in this article. I find Leontes' suggestion that maybe a section with perceived like-minded schools could be described and related to more mainstream psychotherapeutic directions (does labeling thusly make sense?) would be a good idea. However, I do think that a mention in the introductory section as a main system of psychotherapy is warranted at least to the extent that Psychodynamics is afforded such prominent mention. I seem to have set off a commotion centering on that particular article that I think might have some bearing on the current article. Suffice to mention the professional bodies regulating the system of Body psychotherapy both in the US and in Europe, as well as professional journals, whereas nothing can be shown for as it comes to Psychodynamics. In fact, everything about Psychodynamics here seems vague to me and it appears to be a rather nondesprict umbrella term which is not clearly distinguisable from Psychoanalysis proper. __meco 21:06, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Psychodynamics, as I understand it, not withstanding the strange wikipedia article regarding it that is desperate need of attention, is an umbrella term for all systems of psychotherapy that ancestorial roots directly come from psychoanalysis. Very few practicioners actually use straight psychoanalysis Many current counselors and psychotherapists use psychodynamic techniques, including object relations, speaking about ones past in relation to the now and as such it is something that is appropriate to the main system of psychotherapy. It can be distinguished by other approaches like humanist, CBT and systems theory. Brief therapy doesn't really feel like it fits there, perhaps. Body Psychology doesn't as, even though it's established, like other forms of psychotherapy it remains on the fringes. Perhaps expressive therapy could be listed here, even though that a tad bit on the fringes, as body psychology could be seen an offshoot of dance/movement therapy, perhaps. I do agree that we need a reason why each mentioned systems is there. leontes 21:16, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Just because 'Psychodynamics shouldn't be mentioned and is' doesn't mean Body Psychotherapy should. Wikipedia doesn't play the relativism game, otherwise everything's inclusion or exclusion is just an association away. Please keep it to Body Psychotherapy's merits or demerits for if Body Psychotherapy stays or goes. (This all kind of sounds like I'm pissed or something, but I'm not, fyi :) ) JoeSmack ^Talk 21:32, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Having begun to peruse the web sites of the US and European associations of Body Psychotherapy respectively, I have at least found the following quotes from both web sites' introductory articles about Body Psychotherapy:

"...we consider that we hold a not-to-be-neglected position as one of the 10 major streams of psychotherapy today, with at least 20 sub-divisions." (US site, written 1997, the US association was established in 1996)

"Body-Psychotherapy is a distinct branch of psychotherapy, well within the main body of psychotherapy, which has a long history and a body of literature and knowledge based upon a sound theoretical position." (European site)

I am not writing this to press for inclusion as a major system, simply for reference when it comes to expanding the article. __meco 18:41, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Beware of self publications! 'We are great' style stuff, you know? ;) JoeSmack ^Talk 19:01, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Pruning condoned

User:Voice of All has removed more than 5,000 bytes of text and also done some rearranging of other text. I find this edit to constitute a significant improvement of the article. __meco 09:10, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

New Section - Analysis of Comments

The text [4] has been added and removed twice, by user Shrp2edgeswrd. As it stands, it clearly has POV issues, and the majority is unsourced (with the exception of the partial reference at the end). But in particular, it seems to consist of a commentary on the previous section of the article. In some ways I agree with the points raised, but obviously adding a contradictory commentary to the end isn't the way to resolve the problems. I think the "Client views and concerns" section has original research or at least un-sourced claims (and I tagged it as such a while back), and needs an overhaul. It needs to be referenced or deleted, and I suspect it's not going to stand up as NPOV and should go. Anyone fancy having a go at this? Cheers, Eve 21:33, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

I think it was unnecessary to remove this text. I think it simply needs to be re-written and that that will take care of most of the objections raised. I have, by the way, added the {{weasel}} template to this whole section, and I do believe that quite a few statements should be removed if they don't become sourced very soon. In a way that is a petty, because I find much of it to be likely representations of actual positions. But in the primary interest of making a reliable encyclopedia we cannot have statements beginning with "experts say..." or "research has shown..." with no attribution of source. __meco 06:33, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Meco makes a good point. Statements need to have sources which meet the standard of being Wikipedia:Verifiability, which isn't necessarily a very high hurtle to overcome here. JohnsonRon 16:40, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

I have some sources that add some support to this but don't have time right now to add - started an outline-ish edit of this section. I think the section should be retitiled - the material in it has important points, but are more general concerns regarding bad psychotherapy (to use a very general term). --Murmur74 01:53, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Removing "Client views and concerns"

I have removed the text below. It is largely unsourced opinions and original research, much of it sounding like propaganda. Some statements are outright false, such as "Most research suggests that almost as many people (50% as opposed to 65%) feel helped by sitting in a room talking to someone generally as do when sitting in a room talking to someone who is deliberately 'doing therapy'." Really? Most research says this? Anyway, I think this section should be flushed where it belongs, but I put it here in case anyone wants to try finding some credible sources and putting it back. Ash(talk) 15:24, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Dependency on therapist: I can't say for the other comments below, but it is blatantly apparent that clients often form dependencies. You just have to ask around for proof! A discussion on this ought to be included -- I imagine there are references to dependency in the literature - ?

==Client views and concerns== <P> {{Original research|section|date=March 2007}}<P> {{weasel}}<P> Therapy, as with other treatment, can at times have [[iatrogenic]] effects, where problems are caused via the treatment. {{Fact|date=June 2007}} Termed 'negative outcome' by Strupp and colleagues{{Fact|date=May 2007}}, one study found that therapists with a negative self-image, or [[introject]], who adhere closely to a manualized treatment are at greater risk for negative outcomes with the people they treat {{Fact|date=May 2007}}. <P> ====Closeness to the therapist==== <P> First, many clients experience very strong emotions towards their therapists. Sometimes, these are feelings of obsession, love, and/or sexual attraction (even where this goes against the client’s normal sexuality). This can happen to anyone, including clients who are in extremely happy, loving, stable relationships with their partners, and people who are not normally highly emotional. {{Fact|date=June 2007}} <P> Clients are not usually forewarned about this, but it is common. Some schools of therapy refer to it as 'transference' and believe it to be emotions that are "transferred" from another person in the client's life (for example, a parent). Other schools do not see it in this way. Some schools deliberately encourage these feelings because they are seen as a key to the client 'working through' emotional issues. <P> These emotions can be overpowering and have a huge effect upon the client's life. His or her other relationships can suffer. He or she can find it impossible to function normally and live for the hour per week that he or she spends with the therapist. Clients have been known to be so overwhelmed by such feelings that they experience panic attacks, breakdowns, severe depression and other traumatic effects, both during the therapy and after it has ended. The feelings can be brief but can also persist for years. {{Fact|date=May 2007}} <P> Therapists say that it is only in unusual cases that the feelings become that strong. They also say that staying in therapy is the best way to deal with them, and that 'working through' the feelings usually causes them to subside. But experts are now saying that it is much more common than the therapy world is prepared to admit (or indeed knows – some clients go through all that pain without telling their therapist). It is also a phenomenon which is not really understood, and if the feelings do become unmanageable, there is little or nothing in the therapist's training to help. {{Fact|date=June 2007}} <P> ====Dependency on therapist==== <P> Similarly, clients often become extremely dependent upon their therapist. Clients can literally feel unable to make simple decisions without talking things through with the therapist. Some clients find that life outside of the therapy room feels insignificant and meaningless. This can have a devastating and humiliating effect on the client’s personal, social and working life. Again, clients are not usually forewarned of this possibility, and little is known about how to prevent it or to curtail it when it happens. {{Fact|date=May 2007}} <P> The client’s handle on reality can be severely affected by therapy. Some forms can encourage clients to question themselves to such an extent that they can lose a clear sense of identity, self-belief and confidence in their own judgement. Many people believe that there is a brainwashing element to therapy, sometimes even resembling a cult, and that this can override clients' normal judgement and self-sufficiency. <P> Many clients, former clients, [[sociologist]]s and social commentators have warned that therapy can convince clients that their perfectly normal human feelings and behaviours are malfunctions – signs of mental ill health, instability or 'disordered personality'. Believing oneself to be ill or not functioning adequately can be extremely upsetting, and can even become a self-fulfilling prophecy. It also seems that therapy’s focus on the past, and/or negative experiences, and/or on the client’s own internal world can be most unhelpful for some clients, because it surrounds them in despair when what they need might be to put the past behind them, look at positives or focus outwards. <P> ====Effectiveness==== <P> Most research suggests that almost as many people (50% as opposed to 65%) feel helped by sitting in a room talking to someone generally as do when sitting in a room talking to someone who is deliberately 'doing therapy'. {{Fact|date=May 2007}}

DDP

I have removed Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy from this page. This little known therapy has been extensively advertised on Wiki as evidence based, sometimes the only evidence based treatment for a variety of disorders affecting attachment. (Theraplay, also little known and not evidence based has also been advertised in this way.) A range of attachment articles including attachment therapy are currently before ArbCom. In the course of ArbCom it has transpired that of the 6 users promoting DDP and Theraplay and controlling these pages, User:DPeterson, User:RalphLender, User:JonesRD, User:SamDavidson, User:JohnsonRon, and User:MarkWood, the latter four are definitely socks and have been blocked, and the other two have been blocked for one year. The attachment related pages are in the course of being rewritten. Fainites ^barley 20:28, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Update - User:RalphLender has been blocked indef. as a sockpuppet and User:DPeterson has been blocked for one year by ArbCom. Fainites ^barley 18:33, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Hypno-psychotherapy merge proposal

This section is way too long, I think it would be good for it to have its own article - and I think it does already: Hypnotherapy. Do people agree that these are the same thing? If so, we need to merge the content from this section into that article, and write a short summary bit to replace it here. If they are not the same thing, then I believe a new article needs to be created. Opinions? Steve Carlson^Talk 06:26, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Not an expert, but they sound the same to me. I say go for it. Eve (talk) 11:05, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Its an interesting and well written essay but its out of place here. I agree this article needs a short summary of the current practice of psychotherapy within clinical hypnosis/hypnotherapy. I wouldn't so much merge as transfer the whole essay into Hypnotherapy and then put a different summary here. This page is more a sort of round up of all the different therapies. Fainites ^barley 19:07, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Image copyright problem with Image:Carlrogers.jpg

The image Image:Carlrogers.jpg is used in this article under a claim of fair use, but it does not have an adequate explanation for why it meets the requirements for such images when used here. In particular, for each page the image is used on, it must have an explanation linking to that page which explains why it needs to be used on that page. Please check

• That there is a non-free use rationale on the image's description page for the use in this article.
• That this article is linked to from the image description page.

This is an automated notice by FairuseBot. For assistance on the image use policy, see Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. --05:41, 17 May 2008 (UTC) Bold text

This book is really good....but...

I don't know where to put in the article

http://www.powells.com/biblio?show=TRADE%20PAPER:USED:9780495100584:79.00#table_of_contents --202.14.152.15 (talk) 03:23, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

No mention of Coue? Are psychotherapists ashamed of him? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.15.226.132 (talk) 02:03, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Therapeutic Relationship

I think much of this section is plagiarized, the text is identical to the article here: http://www.experiencefestival.com/a/Psychotherapy_-_Therapeutic_Relationship/id/598080

Clichecow (talk) 03:01, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

• Agreed and have deleted the sub-section--Ziji (talk email) 05:57, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Fred M. Levin

I created this page on a psychotherapist, Fred M. Levin. I think he is noteworthy in the field. It is up for deletion. Anyone care to opine? If this is an inappropraite forum for this, just delete it. http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Fred_M._Levin_(2nd_nomination)

Mwalla (talk) 23:00, 23 February 2009 (UTC)mwalla

• Yes, yes. Fred Levin is noteworthy. Some arrogant "deletionists" have lord it over the Wikipedia, I believe. 122.3.208.80 (talk) 00:47, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Common Factors Theory

There is a fledgling article at Common factors theory. It too references "The Great Psychotherapy Debate" by Wampold. Some relationship between the section on Criticisms and this other article should be made. This section should also mention the larger debate over Evidence-based practice.

I'm also curious why there is a list of books in the References section which are not referenced by the text. An article in a collection there by Ted Asay contains the phrase "Common Factors" in its title. --Tedlau (talk) 22:41, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm a psychotherapist in Illinois. I have followed this debate since Graduate school in 1996. There's an awful lot to be said about this issue; I think referencing and mentioning the conclusions in this study might be a good idea: [5] SLCostello (talk) 06:28, 22 November 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by SLCostello (talk • contribs) 06:23, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

I ended up deleting the section about controversies in psychotherapy. I had provided additional information about evidenced based practices as well as other important up to date information with scientific citations which would be immediately available to wiki users but somebody vandalized it. Considering how choppy the section was with such limited information, and the unwillingness of someone to allow more information in the section, it just seemed best to delete it altogether, unfortunately. As a professional who practices evidenced based therapies and who is well read on the effectiveness of psychotherapy, it is upsetting to see this kind of article in Wiki about the field. And for me, it has downgraded Wiki's credibility Substantially.--SLCostello (talk) 06:10, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

I put back the entire article with my additions which were unfairly deleted without any discussion. I reviewed the guidelines of edit warring and found that my additions to the section of the article are appropriate in that they are based on scientific evidence and they provide citations. I am not the one who started the warring here, but you can stop it by entering into a discussion. Wikipedia articles are not owned by one or a few users; sorry to crash the Pedia Party. Thank you. --SLCostello (talk) 15:45, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

I haven't participated in discussion at this article before, I mostly watch it for vandalism and excessive coverage of fringe theories; however I did notice the recent activity on the page and review the most recent additions. It appears that the new material is unbalanced, excessive, and inappropriately biased. The section is about controversy, yet all of the new material is about 'support' not 'controversy' and it more than tripled the length of the section....very unbalanced. Further, it relies heavily on very few references and is heavy-handed POV. While I'm sure regular editors are willing to discuss reasonable changes one step at a time, this is too much material with too many problems to simply be inserted into the existing articles. I'm going to revert the addition again; please note that this will be the third time an experienced editor has reverted the content. Future changes would best be discussed individually on the talkpage, in advance. Thanks, and good luck. Doc Tropics 16:57, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Prior to my edits, the section contained only one controversial meta-analysis by Wampold - I added information about all the major Meta-anal. since 1980. The section contained limited information about the controversies that was just outdated, oversimplified, and failed to include mention of the status of Evidenced Based Therapies since 2001. I added much more information about Evidenced Based Therapies; it may appear biased, but the fact is that the majority of Scientific research out there supports cognitive behavioral therapy. I see that you are an experienced editor, but I strongly question the comments of other users who add just one meta analysis by Wampold and leave out so many others; including only one study is what I call bias - that is why I mentioned all of the meta analysis, as well as more information about evidenced based therapies.

I just don't understand why my postings get deleted and all of the original postings get to stay.--SLCostello (talk) 17:18, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

We may be able to incorporate some of the content, but the style, tone and coherence just isn't up to the standard we want for this article. You also need to ensure that you are writing neutrally, and that all of the sources you are using are reliable. Discuss the changes you want to make here with reference to the sources, and we'll see where we can go with improving the article. Fences&Windows 21:22, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

To begin with, this entire section, prior to my additions, had poor style, tone (in parts), and is quite choppy. I would like to see this section organized better, for example, into paragraphs which contain a thesis and then supporting information. The section should have at least 1 thesis consistent with the heading and then 1-2 paragraphs of information in support of the heading and then 1-2 paragraphs in retort to the heading.

Also, I think in the meantime, the section should be removed entirely until it is redone. The current content lacks source, for example, someone writes the following two sentences:

"The dropout level is quite high; one meta-analysis of 125 studies concluded that the mean dropout rate was 46.86%.[17] The high level of dropout has raised some criticism about the relevance and efficacy of psychotherapy."

The first sentence is cited; however, the second sentence is not. Moreover, the second sentence cannot be found in the abstract which is cited for the first sentence; the scientific abstract only indicates that lower income and minorities had higher drop out rates and suggests more research in the area of dropouts. This to me is very unsettling because it seems like it is a random opinion of an editor juxtaposed next to a citation as though to imply that this was the opinion of the researchers.

Another problems, that hasn't been addressed, and which my edits were trying to fix, was that someone cites the Wampold study from 1998 which is only one of many meta analysis of psychotherapy's effectiveness. This one meta analysis has been the subject of much debate itself and is in no manner representative of the debate about the effectiveness of different types of psychotherapy.

Another problem is that someone added Frank Furedi's book, "Therapy Culture," which is from the 1940s and reprinted in 2004; this book is such a small splinter of an argument and has no bearing on the countless studies which have been done since the 1960s which continually indicate that psychotherapy is indeed effective. His book was written prior to the invention of the most widely researched and effective form of psychotherapy, CBT.

And here's another example of the lack of relevant and current scientific information about psychotherapy - the citation of the book: Against Therapy: Emotional Tyranny and the Myth of Psychological Healing by Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson. There is no science here, just opinion, and quite outdated opinions at best.

And again, somebody cites Hans Eysenck's studies of psychotherapy treatment as questioning the effectiveness of psychotherapy and these, too, are from 1952! As I mentioned before, there have been over a 1000 studies of psychotherapies since 1945, most since 1980, and the most effective forms of therapy were not developed until the 1960s.

This section contains a substantial amount of outdated sources and several of the comments are not scientific but outdated opinions.

How about I start a new section in this Topic about the scientific research supporting the effectiveness of psychotherapy?--SLCostello (talk) 06:27, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Regarding your last suggestion and the general scope of your concerns, the bulk of the article is already about the effectiveness of psychotherapy....the "Criticism" section is specifically about criticism. It would not be at all appropriate to force "equal space" for responses. Properly referenced responses to specific points might be briefly explained at the end of a paragraph, but any more would be undue. Please understand that it doesn't matter how many studies have been done which support the effectiveness of therapy, there has indeed been academic controversy and criticism, and a properly encyclopedic article will include that information. Again, the Criticism section is about criticism. As I suggested on your talkpage, the best way to start is pick one particular paragraph (or subtopic), highlight your concerns, and suggest a specific improvement that other editors can respond to. Doc Tropics 01:07, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Chess Therapy

I'm a doctoral student and I have recently reviewed Chess Therapy by Fadul and Canlas (2009) ISBN 9780557148752 as part of my book report (an academic exercise) and finds chess therapy interesting. Any expansion or exposition along this line? 122.3.208.80 (talk) 00:45, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, Wikipedia currently contains no information about Chess Therapy at all, and since the primary source is so recently published, it's probably too soon to look for any here. Because secondary sources are strongly preferred as references, there is generally a lag time while new ideas and developments are reviewed and discussed by the appropriate professional community. On the other hand, if you're aware of any useful references, particularly from peer-reviewed journals, you could certainly be bold and add to the article yourself. Good luck, Doc Tropics 21:26, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

The book is "published" by Lulu, i.e. it is self-published. I removed mention of it from the article a while back. Fences&Windows 14:54, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification; that explains things. Self-pub.... Doc Tropics 16:26, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Criticism section

I certainly don't know enough about psychotherapy to fix this myself, but I do know that it needs to be fixed. 69.106.240.41 (talk) 10:30, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

The criticism section should definitley be reviewed. There are references to Masson, who has no training i psychotherapy and whose book recieved mainly negative reviews. Other references are to people who have published critical books with themselves as publishers. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.34.83.114 (talk) 22:55, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Probably a 900-pages german book which was very influential in Germany from the midninties should be included here. It is a meta-analysis of 3500 respectively 900 publications till 1985 on the outcome of psychotherapy. Klaus Grawe - Psychotherapie im Wandel. His conclusions resemble those of Wampold, see: de:Psychotherapieforschung#Schulenunspezifische_Wirkfaktoren . for more information on Grawe see: http://www.psychotherapyresearch.org/displaycommon.cfm?an=1&subarticlenbr=50

The paragraph on "spontanuous remission" lacks references to the first author of this argument H.J. Eysenck (1952) and to an important article of McNeilly and Howard (1991). To summarize: Yes, psychotherapy is effective. Yes, social ressources are effective too. Perhaps they are equally effective, BUT psychotherapy helps much faster. Eysenck, H. J. (1952). The effects of psychotherapy: an evaluation. Journal of Consulting Psychology, 16(5), 319-324. McNeilly, C. L., & Howard, K. I. (1991). The effects of psychotherapy: A reevaluation based on dosage. Psychotherapy Research, 1(1), 74-78. doi: 10.1080/10503309112331334081 Dr.a.hartmann (talk) 15:42, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

This question of efficacy versus expediency has been discussed since Freud. My feeling is that no matter how expedient the solution is, reoccurrence of symptoms is in the long run highly detrimental. Therefore, social support cannot be undervalued. Galfromohio (talk) 12:29, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

Unbalanced critique

The psychotherapy article needs a balanced critique section. The current article contains a section called "criticisms and questions regarding effectiveness" in which a few random studies have been cited, and a laundry list of random arguments are put forward. It is not a comprehensive precis of the effectiveness literature. The article neglects a wide body of work that points to a) the success of some types of therapy with specific types of disorders, b) discipline-agnostic characteristics of therapist behaviour that contribute to success, c) superiority of psychopharmacology & psychotherapy combined, vs either intervention on it's own, d) characteristics of clients/patients that seem to benefit most from psychotherapy, and e) vested interests of stakeholders in swinging research to one side of the debate or the other and other inhibiting factors - consider the two APA's, the various laws and licensing authorities, the separate academic communities in psychiatry, philosophy, social work, occupational therapy, the professional jealousies, the profound neglect of mental illness and psychological wellbeing in public health and health insurance, and the impact of the pharmaceutical industry's deep pockets on the dominant discourse.

Please note that I am editing anonymously in protest against the tyrrany of the editing majority. Wikipedia's non-negotiable, amateur editor norm might be appropriate for certain article categories, but in more nuanced technical spaces there is invariably a segment that make nuisances of themselves by wanting to debate every word and angle. I have watched the development of articles on schools of psychotherapy since the early 2000s, and I'm afraid time and multiple amateur edits have not improved them much. In the specific case of psychology their mistakes add to the perception that this is a wishy washy discipline void of a body of knowledge and ANY facts. I suspect that this is partly why self-respecting people who are knowledgeable don't want to be involved in what is otherwise a very worthy undertaking.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.242.118.144 (talk) 10:52, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

Info about the topic and zen....

• http://scholar.google.com.hk/scholar?hl=en&q=allintitle%3A+zen+psychotherapy&btnG=Search&as_sdt=2000&as_ylo=&as_vis=0

• http://scholar.google.com.hk/scholar?hl=en&q=allintitle%3A+chan+psychotherapy&btnG=Search&as_sdt=2000&as_ylo=&as_vis=0

--222.67.219.55 (talk) 09:10, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

References

I have formatted the references uniformly (lastname, firstname I., date dmy, etc.). I have added doi's, pmid, links, isbn's etc. for all the references I could. I have removed the bibliography section as it contained only one uncited book:

• Asay, Ted P.; Lambert, Michael J. (1999). "The Empirical Case for the Common Factors in Therapy: Quantitative Findings". In Hubble, Mark A.; Duncan, Barry L.; Miller, Scott D. (eds.). The Heart and Soul of Change: What Works in Therapy. American Psychological Association. pp. 23–55. ISBN 9781557985576.

I have also added page needed tags to quite a few refs and a couple of reliability and verify tags. I am setting up autoarchiving on this talk page. - - MrBill3 (talk) 14:22, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

Possible copyright problem

This article has been revised as part of a large-scale clean-up project of multiple article copyright infringement. (See the investigation subpage) Earlier text must not be restored, unless it can be verified to be free of infringement. For legal reasons, Wikipedia cannot accept copyrighted text or images borrowed from other web sites or printed material; such additions must be deleted. Contributors may use sources as a source of information, but not as a source of sentences or phrases. Accordingly, the material may be rewritten, but only if it does not infringe on the copyright of the original or plagiarize from that source. Please see our guideline on non-free text for how to properly implement limited quotations of copyrighted text. Wikipedia takes copyright violations very seriously. Diannaa (talk) 00:58, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

A More Neutral Definition?

I tried to make the definition more neutral by focusing on what psychotherapy actually is, rather than which diploma is on the wall. Licensure is an important topic but doesn't belong in the definition itself. RobertPlamondon (talk) 03:44, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

I thinkg some distinction should be made as per the above, however some narrower (but common) definitions do only include therapists with a particular type of psychological training/expertise/methods, and may not include any helpful person or e.g. clergy.

Likewise the equating of psychotherapy to mean talking therapies (or talking cure) may not always apply (I think those brief articles could be merged in here though?) as some therapies involve more than that (though the broader psychological intervention might then be used...). Some of those points are already made in the Definition subsection which the intro should summarise Eversync (talk) 11:40, 9 July 2015 (UTC)

Quite a lot of points in the archives about wanting to reorganize the sections, which still seem confusing, I'm going to have another go. Eversync (talk) 11:22, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

I would like to add a comment that I think is important to highlight. In the article is said: 'Psychotherapy is the use of psychological methods...' This is not correct because every type of psychotherapeutic intervention is based on the relationship, emotions , within a setting (therapeutic environment). Psychology operates on different methods that are called 'scientific as statistics, questionnaires, and similar. So, it cannot be said that psychotherapy uses psychological methods. This is a false information to confuse the two different disciplines, with the goal to merge them together. Psychotherapy is the study of the psyche, soul, that psychology have never recognized as object. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 147.8.195.242 (talk) 07:47, 4 August 2016 (UTC)

Do you have a source for that? This doesn't sound like a mainstream distinction. —PermStrump(talk) 07:58, 4 August 2016 (UTC)

I think there is an important point there as I interpret it, about models of change based on relational experiences thought to have a direct emotional/soulful effect, vs models based on certain technical processes being performed to affect someone's behaviour or thoughts in the first instance. Both are part of psychotherapies though. 'Use of psychological methods' perhaps does err towards implying the latter model, though the sentence continues on to 'regular personal interaction'. How to capture both? Does Norcross's definition do that in the Definitions section? As per the sources there, the 'psych' in psychotherapy refers to the method used - i.e. it's not somatotherapy or sociotherapy etc even if they improve the mind - not to the ultimate target (so psychotherapy can be to improve bodily complaints, as it's done via the mind). Eversync (talk) 12:22, 4 August 2016 (UTC)

I propose a small addition to a section

I'm an undergraduate student currently enrolled in a Abnormal Psychology course. I have found a simple yet potentially effective addition for the "Criticisms and questions regarding effectiveness" section. As the section concludes, and before it moves onto the following "The therapeutic relationship" section there is the following sentence: "Common factors theory asserts it is precisely the factors common to the most psychotherapies that make any psychotherapy successful: this is the quality of the therapeutic relationship." I wish to make a simple addition of common factors and thus the edited version of the sentence will be the following: "Common factors theory asserts it is precisely the factors common to the most psychotherapies that make any psychotherapy successful: this is the quality of the therapeutic relationship, interpretation of problem, and the confrontation of emotional emotions." This information is current with the latest version of Nolen-Hoeksema's Abnormal Psychology Sixth Edition, which will be cited. Thoughts? --Wikigator14 (talk) 18:51, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

External links modified

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Citation updated, as the link was dead. Drdaviss (talk) 03:47, 23 July 2016 (UTC)

Odd definition

"change and overcome problems in desired ways" reads very strangely. To "change problems in desired ways" makes no sense. Shouldn't the definition be "change behavior and overcome problems in desired ways"? 203.80.61.102 (talk) 20:57, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

There are two separate ideas: "to help a person change" and (to help a person) "overcome problems in desired ways". The first sentence makes sense to me when read as a whole, and the sense is further clarified by the subsequent sentence:

Psychotherapy is the use of psychological methods, particularly when based on regular personal interaction, to help a person change and overcome problems in desired ways. Psychotherapy aims to improve an individual's well-being and mental health, to resolve or mitigate troublesome behaviors, beliefs, compulsions, thoughts, or emotions, and to improve relationships and social skills.
— Psychotherapy 18:49, 24 August 2017‎ (UTC)

One could substitute words here or there according to one's personal taste, but the basic idea seems sound. I don't think it is necessary to add the word "behavior" as suggested above, because as the second sentence notes, the object of change may be, e.g., beliefs or emotions too, which are not widely classified as "behavior" (except perhaps by some radical behaviorists?). I would be more inclined to remove the phrase "in desired ways" as redundant and not always true, since a person who enters counseling or psychotherapy may not always, at first, evince much desire to change or overcome problems: see, e.g., motivational interviewing. Biogeographist (talk) 01:23, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

Counselor and client safety

The following text was added by an IP editor in two places in a way that broke existing ref tags and did not conform to the existing citation style (WP:CITEVAR). I am pasting it below in case anyone cares to comment or salvage any content from it. Biogeographist (talk) 13:03, 24 November 2017 (UTC)

Counselor and client safety

Crisis is a situation or an event that may face an individual or a group. They may be unable to tolerate or handle the situation because of their personal inadequacies or because of limited resources. Therefore crisis intervention is the immediate psychological help accorded to victims by a professional as suggested by Roberts, (2005). Its aim is to help the victims in returning back to their pre-crisis situation and to restore an equilibrium. This paper attempts to explain the counselor and client safety during crisis, the key elements of risk and the strategies for managing the risks.

Counselor safety is an issue that has previously been undermined, but it has now become a disturbing issue. Kress, Protivnak, & Sadlak, (2008) acknowledged that all counselors are susceptible to working with violent clients at one point in their careers. Predicting violence may be difficult but a counselor may come up with ways if identifying potentially violent clients. Clients with a history of drug and substance abuse and those with a history of violence are more likely to go into that route. Some can also provide hints that they may be violent. As therapists we should come up with safety measures to protect ourselves when working with potentially violent clients. Assessing client lethality and seeking supervision can help in ensuring both the counselor and client safety. Setting therapeutic boundaries can reduce the chances for occurrence of violence.

Similarly, there are crisis situations where the client’s safety needs to be assessed. In case of a crisis such as terrorist attack, a therapist can assess whether a client is safe or if there is need for medical attention. When working with suicidal clients, victims of domestic violence and homicide clients, it is important for us to ensure their safety. In such situations, it is the therapist’s responsibility to ensure clients safety. Hence a collaboration between client and counselor should help in coming up with safety plans which are reasonable and valid. In a situation where a client does not seem to be imposing danger to self or to people around, it is still the responsibility of the therapist to make sure that the client is safe and comfortable( Kavan, Guck, & Barone, 2006). When initiating a therapeutic relationship, a counselor should inform a client about duty to warn and also about instances when confidentiality may be breached.

The key elements of risk can be when a client’s life is threatened or if a client has a potential of being lethal. A repeated pattern of domestic violence can also be an element of risk (Kress, Protivnak & Sadlak, 2008). Furthermore, clients engaging in risky behaviors or those abusing drugs may have their safety impaired. A client may be at risk if the law enforcement fails to follow up on a domestic violence case. Subsequently, a counselor may be at risk when dealing with violent and psychotic clients. There should be plans put in place to protect both client and therapist if their safety is threatened.

Safety measures should be put in place to help in risk management. James & Gilliland, (2012) suggested that a battered woman scale should be used because it has the ability of measuring traits that may be difficult to measure. Safety measures that can be used include establishing a relationship with the police for them to help during risk situations. Therapists chair should be positioned close to the door for a clear escape path if need be. The therapy room and the parking lot should be well lit. Moreover, a therapist should not chase after a client who decides to walk out of a session. A therapist should also come up with a standard plan for dealing with violent clients.

References

• James, R., & Gilliland, B. (2012). Crisis intervention strategies. Nelson Education.
• Kavan, M. G., Guck, T. P., & Barone, E. J. (2006). A practical guide to crisis management. American family physician, 74(7), 1159-1164.
• Kress, V., Protivnak, J., & Sadlak, L. (2008). Counseling clients involved with violent intimate partners: The mental health counselor's role in promoting client safety. Journal of Mental Health Counseling, 30(3), 200-210.
• Roberts, A. R. (Ed.). (2005). Crisis intervention handbook: Assessment, treatment, and research. Oxford university press.

Citation style

Boghog recently made many changes to references in this article, many of which I have reverted: per Wikipedia:Citation templates, the last1, first1, last2, first2, ... fields are correct; removing information such as first names and journal wikilinks from citation templates is unhelpful, and removing such info from only a few references is inconsistent. It would be good if this article had a consistent citation style, per WP:CITEVAR, but until such a style is established for this article per consensus, do not remove information from citations. Biogeographist (talk) 14:27, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

Biogeographist. I am quite willing to followup any of my edits with additional edits to fix any problems and to make things completely consistent. One of the problems with this article is that it has an inconsistent citation style with respect to first authors. Some times first names are spelled out in full, sometimes first initials with periods are used, and sometimes initials without periods. One option to replace all the first names with initials without periods using either |vauthors= or leave "last1, first1, last2, first2, ..." in place and add |name-list-format=vanc. Or we can leave it in its current inconsistent state. Boghog (talk) 15:55, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

@Boghog: It is not a good idea to remove full author names from citation templates because the extra information provided by full author names is useful in several ways: it disambiguates authors with the same last name and initials; it provides a more complete identity of the authors for people unfamiliar with the literature (and many readers of Wikipedia are likely to be less familiar with the literature than specialists); it provides more search results when users search for full names.

If an article's citation style calls for last name and initials only, it is better to use the name-list-format field of the citation template to set the display format of the names, rather than to strip the first names from the citation template. Another important reason to keep full names in citation templates is because citation templates generate COinS data for automated citation harvesting by reference management software; with full names included, the data harvested from Wikipedia will be more complete. Think of citation templates as database records: we want the most complete database record possible, and fields such as name-list-format (and the other display options parameters) control how the data is displayed in the rendered page.

Regarding the citation style of this article, I am partial to displaying full names due to the value of the information that I mentioned above. I think of initials as a convention used to save space (and thereby save on printing costs) in print media, or in content that is published in print and other formats. Wikipedia is not distributed in print, so there is no need to use initials to save on printing costs. Biogeographist (talk) 16:09, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

Thank you for your very reasoned reply. I think your strongest but also weakest argument is providing the most complete database possible. It is generally acknowledged that Wikipedia itself is not a reliable source. Therefore IMHO, it is a mistake to harvest Wikipedia COinS data since it may be subject vandalism or honest mistakes. One really should go back to a reliable secondary source of bibliographic information such as PubMed. Hence one only needs to harvest database identifiers such as PMID and then using these identifiers, recreate the citation from scratch using the numerous tools available for this purpose. The most important citation information are the links back to the original source. Second is the title which gives a sense what the citation is about. Third in importance are authors and journal names that gives an impression about the reliability the of source for specialists that are familiar with the field. For the general reader, authors names, whether abbreviated or not, will not be very meaningful. If someone is really interested in particular author, one should go back to the original source where the author affiliation and full name of the author are displayed.

I do not have any strong feeling on how the citations are formatted in this particular article, so I will not make any further edits to this article. Boghog (talk) 19:08, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

@Boghog: That's an interesting counterargument, but there are some weaknesses in what you have said too.

First, I would not cite WP:WINARS, as you did, to argue that Wikipedia editors should not be trying to include the most complete citation data possible in citation templates because Wikipedia users should not be using citation data from Wikipedia. That reminds me of the saying, "Don't vote! It only encourages them!", where the voters are Wikipedia editors improving citation data, and "them" are the users of Wikipedia. (OK, this analogy doesn't work—but it's funny.) As an editor, I take pride in my ability to add reliable citation data to Wikipedia, and I believe that the articles wherein I've been able to thoroughly vet the citation data (not this article, obviously!) contain accurate, reliable bibliographic data. Furthermore, the bibliographic data in those articles may be more complete than the corresponding data in PubMed in the case of references for which PubMed does not have, for example, full names, or DOIs. (I've noticed in my research that some PubMed records are missing DOIs for articles that have DOIs on the publisher's site.) WP:WINARS is important to keep in mind, but it doesn't serve as support for the argument that Wikipedia editors should not be trying to include the most complete citation data possible in citation templates.

Second, your assertion that Wikipedia users don't care about author names disregards the variability in the subject matter of Wikipedia articles and in the purposes of Wikipedia users. The importance of authors may vary by field: in the humanities, where the subject matter is often personal experiences and opinions, who authored a source is often extremely important; in the empirical sciences, where the subject matter is often impersonal data and models, who authored a source is less important. Psychotherapy straddles the two cultures of the humanities and empirical sciences; many researchers are thoroughly in the empirical science camp, but many clinicians are mostly in the humanities camp, and some people are both researchers and clinicians (by "researchers" I mean large-n researchers; clinicians of course are always doing n=1 research, which can be aggregated into large-n research but typically isn't). Biogeographist (talk) 22:22, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

I reverted this edit by Boghog for the same reason we already discussed over two years ago above. Biogeographist (talk) 20:21, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

And we are still back to an inconsistent mess of given names in citations. If someone is really interested in the first names of authors in a source, they will follow the links to the original publication. Boghog (talk) 21:53, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

There is no good reason to make readers leave Wikipedia to figure out who wrote a cited source. Biogeographist (talk) 22:23, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

Treatments duration

The "Treatments duration" section badly needs a rewrite. It includes no coverage of the relevant literature, and instead provides discusses relapse rates in depression, which is fairly unrelated: "According to the American Psychological Association, experts suggests that those who have had two depressive episodes in recent years, or three episodes over their life, should be treated on an ongoing basis to prevent recurrent depression:[17] At least 60% of individuals who have had one depressive episode will have another, 70% of individuals who have had two depressive episodes will have a third, and 90% of individuals with three episodes will have a fourth episode." Please consider editing. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 1000Faces (talk • contribs) 18:41, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

I agree that the section is misleading for the reasons stated above, and I removed the section until it can be improved. Biogeographist (talk) 22:08, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

Poorly illustrated

This article has only one photo currently. Could we find some more? {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 20:16, 27 July 2020 (UTC)