A Wish to Share

I have, with rapt attention, been reading all the posts from the beginning of this forum, and clearly have a lot of catching up to do. But having gone through indoctrination rituals in NY to psychoanaltic institutes and then later to cognitive/behavioral approaches, I need to share something! It is not difficult in this field to be seduced by bright, articulate people into believing all kinds of theories. When the leader of a new way of thinking is an especially nice human being, this can make the allure that much more powerful. One easily becomes convinced that their patients are validating their theories all the time. This sequence has been reported and repeated numerous times in the history of psychotherapy (by disciples) . But the recurring problem is always the same- how can we possibly establish the reliability or validity of anything through "case studies". The painful truth is that you can't. Any of us trained in the conduct of controlled experimentation are well acquainted with how our brilliantly reasoned and convincing arguments can simply turn out to be wrong- but in psychotherapy (or whatever you want to call it), there is never an ultimate arbitrator of anything- so we keep going on from one 'reasoned' idea to the next.

So I do very much want to participate in this forum, but I think it is always very important to step back and consider what we call "evidence" and ask, "Is it really?"

• Also A Wish To Share by Steven H. Shmurak, 3/13/98
• Healthy Skepticism by Sue Deppe, MD, Burlington, VT, 3/13/98
• Some Other Concerns...Then onto more Constructive Comments!! by Doug William, Ph.D., 3/14/98
  • More on Langs, please by Don Nathanson, 3/16/98
    • The Essence of Langs--------I hope! by Doug William, 3/17/98
      • A Bit More on Langs by Doug William, 3/17/98
  • Direct Supervision... by Sue Deppe, MD, Burlington, VT, 3/16/98
• Links beween Langs and affect/script theory by Don Nathanson, 3/22/98