Paul: Right...good point and I certainly agree. I'm sure there's plenty of
shaping going on in the therapeutic context. All good therapists pay
attention to what works. Even Freud noted that insight alone is rarely if
ever sufficient for clinical improvement; one needs also to "work through"
(his terms) the underlying conflict. Perhaps this "working through" (often
involving repeated exposure to unpleasant memories and stressful life
situations) is actually the core therapeutic element in psychodynamic
treatment. Still, my key point is that what most psychodynamic therapists
probably view as largely incidental to treatment efficacy could (? - we of
course don't know without dismantling studies) actually be the key
therapeutic ingredient.
...Scott
----- Original Message -----
From: "Paul Brandon" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Teaching in the Psychological Sciences" <[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, March 02, 2006 1:49 PM
Subject: Re: Psychotherapy claims
At 11:00 AM -0500 3/2/06, Scott Lilienfeld wrote:
Hi All: Thanks much for the kind words and for posting this letter to the
list, Stephen. As for the claim regarding short-term psychodynamic
treatments, several recent meta-analyses have shown promising research
support for several disorders, including depression. I don't find the
evidence as convincing or as extensive as that for several other
treatments, particularly behavioral and cognitive-behavioral (which is why
I wrote "perhaps"), but I do think that we consider it carefully. My own
hypothesis is that these treatments do often work largely because they
adventitiously incorporate behavioral techniques, but that possibility
requires testing using dismantling techniques.
A good point, Scott, but I'm not sure that the behavior is really
'adventitious'.
Even psychodynamic psychotherapists are behaving organisms, and I'd expect
their behavior (treatment practices in this case) to be shaped by their
outcomes.
Of course, their behavior of _reporting_ what they do is under the control
of a different set of reinforcement contingencies, and should not be
expected to completely correspond to their actual treatment practices.
--
The best argument against Intelligent Design is that fact that
people believe in it.
* PAUL K. BRANDON [EMAIL PROTECTED] *
* Psychology Dept Minnesota State University *
* 23 Armstrong Hall, Mankato, MN 56001 ph 507-389-6217 *
* http://krypton.mnsu.edu/~pkbrando/ *
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