Book Review: All Therapy Books
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Book Review: All Therapy Books
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Re: Book Review: All Therapy Books
#2Hmmm... I'm pretty skeptical of the premise that "All therapy books start with a claim that their form of therapy will change everything."
My wife practices Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), and the foundation of her approach and all CBT books on her bookshelf is that CBT in fact doesn't change anything at all. You will still have symptoms (depression, anxiety, etc.) after CBT, but the goal of CBT is to help you manage those symptoms and live a meaningful life despite those symptoms. It's reasonable to doubt that such an approach can work, but Scott's article entirely misses that this approach can even exist. I suspect that this is a latent bias due to his psychiatrist training. (Psychiatrists are trained to use medicine to reduce/eliminate symptoms, and that is their primary measure of success; psychologists use therapy, and the reduction/elimination of symptoms is not necessarily their primary measure of success.)
I just did a quick search on amazon for CBT books, however, and found that most results are things like "CBT for Dummies" and "Teach yourself CBT in 7 weeks". These are not books for doctors, but books for laymen that are merely self-help books with a veneer of science/therapy to help the book sell. Who knows what sort of crap is in these books.
Re: Book Review: All Therapy Books
#3I typically want to use the word "strawman" sparingly, but claiming that every self help/therapy book commits the same pitfall is exactly the definition. It seems like the author is asking us to imagine these faulty books to criticize.
Re: Book Review: All Therapy Books
#4Maybe new therapies really do work better simply because they are new to the therapist.
This could create more engagement and enthusiasm on the part of of the therapist leading to better outcomes.
Re: Book Review: All Therapy Books
#5> I am constantly worried by the history of how many things we historically applied historical-purposeful reasoning to, totally confident at the time that our explanations made sense – which we now know are not historical-purposeful at all.
I worry about this a lot too. We tend to make sense of the world through the stories we apply to our experience, but with unreliable memories and a desire to find a story that fits what we want to think, confirmation bias even about our own identities leads us to false conclusions.
Re: Book Review: All Therapy Books
#6[deleted]
Re: Book Review: All Therapy Books
#7Hmmm... I'm pretty skeptical of the premise that "All therapy books start with a claim that their form of therapy will change everything." My wife practices Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), and the foundation of her approach and all CBT books on her bookshelf is that CBT in fact doesn't change anything at all. You will still have symptoms (depression, anxiety, etc.) after CBT, but the goal of CBT is to help you ma…
For those interested in learning more about CBT, "Feeling Good, The New Mood Therapy" by David Burns is probably the most recommended book out there. https://www.amazon.com/Feeling-Good-New-Mood-Therapy/dp/0380...
There is also a handy CBT app called Quirk that I'd also recommend checking out https://www.quirk.fyi/
Re: Book Review: All Therapy Books
#8Hmmm... I'm pretty skeptical of the premise that "All therapy books start with a claim that their form of therapy will change everything." My wife practices Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), and the foundation of her approach and all CBT books on her bookshelf is that CBT in fact doesn't change anything at all. You will still have symptoms (depression, anxiety, etc.) after CBT, but the goal of CBT is to help you ma…
For those interested in learning more about CBT, "Feeling Good, The New Mood Therapy" by David Burns is probably the most recommended book out there. https://www.amazon.com/Feeling-Good-New-Mood-Therapy/dp/0380... There is also a handy CBT app called Quirk that I'd also recommend checking out https://www.quirk.fyi/
Claim that their form of therapy will change everything:
>The good news is that anxiety, guilt, pessimism, procrastination, low self-esteem, and other "black holes" of depression can be cured without drugs. In Feeling Good, eminent psychiatrist, David D. Burns, M.D., outlines the remarkable, scientifically proven techniques that will immediately lift your spirits and help you develop a positive outlook on life.
Re: Book Review: All Therapy Books
#9Effective solutions to deal with emotional and psychological issues are only effective if they are compatible with the individual being treated.
Unlike physical issues, where fixing a broken leg is the same regardless of the patient, emotional and psychological issues require trial and error, but most people don’t understand why it’s necessary to try different solutions, so they just assume it’s all quackery, and avoid the problem entirely.
Re: Book Review: All Therapy Books
#10Hmmm... I'm pretty skeptical of the premise that "All therapy books start with a claim that their form of therapy will change everything." My wife practices Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), and the foundation of her approach and all CBT books on her bookshelf is that CBT in fact doesn't change anything at all. You will still have symptoms (depression, anxiety, etc.) after CBT, but the goal of CBT is to help you ma…
This seems to rely on a specific take on the phrase "change everything" that doesn't square with how I'd have read it, followed by the odd claim that CBT doesn't change anything, but then a description of things it changes.
[EDIT] in fact despite looking superficially like a fairly sober and complete post, I believe the parent might be a poster child for "shallow dismissal".