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From: jlg@lanl.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.sci,net.philosophy
Subject: Re: Value of therapy
Message-ID: <690@lanl.ARPA>
Date: Wed, 19-Mar-86 14:45:19 EST
Article-I.D.: lanl.690
Posted: Wed Mar 19 14:45:19 1986
Date-Received: Sun, 23-Mar-86 00:45:26 EST
References: <899@decwrl.DEC.COM> <402@aoa.UUCP> <192@ulowell.UUCP>
Reply-To: jlg@a.UUCP (Jim Giles)
Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory
Lines: 45
Xref: watmath net.sci:630 net.philosophy:4588

In article <421@aoa.UUCP> carl@aoa.UUCP (Carl Witthoft) writes:
>...                            and I can easily quote two books in favor of
>therapy to each one against. These books, by Sigmund Freud, Anna Freud,
>Erik Erikson, and a dozen other highly intelligent ( as can be judged by 
>other than their psychotherapy works) make what seems to many of us to be
>a clear case for the existence of diagnosable mental disorders AND METHODS
>OF TREATMENT. BTW, treatment often includes drug ,e.g. antidepressant
>therapy. 

There are many people (including many in the psychological community) that
don't hold Freud or any of his followers in much esteem.  In fact, MOST
psychologists now seem to feel that MOST of Freud's ideas were pure
hogwash.  This is not to say that the field of psychology doesn't owe
anything to Freud: without him, it would have taken MUCH longer for
psychology to gain respectability in the general population.

As far as the effectiveness of treatment is concerned, it really IS the
case that treatment only helps if the patient thinks it will help.  In this
respect, it differs very little from other placebo treatments.  There ARE
disorders which benefit greatly from therapy (phobias for example, where
the treatment is a form of behavior modification).  The are other disorders
which never benefitted from therapy (schizophrenia for example, no real
headway was made until it was discovered to be an imbalance in brain
chemistry - even though psychologists pocketed fees for years before for
'treating' schizophrenic patients).

Modern psychology differs greatly from the 'science' advocated by Freud.
The great strides in psychology today are in the areas where it overlaps
conventional medicine in finding physical causes of disorders (like
schizophrenia - Freud would probably maintained that it was outside the
field of psychology if it had a physical origin).  The stereotypical
therapy of talking with the therapist was always controversial and is
still, in many cases, the most suspect part of modern psychology.

J. Giles
Los Alamos

Note: I have no particular, in depth, knowledge of psychology.  I know
      psychologists though, so my claim about their opinions (at least
      about Freud) can be fairly well documented.

Note2: I have used the term 'psychologist' uniformly to mean 'any
       professional in the field of psychology'.  I know there is a more
       restrictive professional use of the term (ie. 'psychologist' as
       opposed to 'psychiatrist').