Talk:Psychotherapy

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Psychotherapy was a good article, but it was removed from the list as it no longer met the good article criteria at the time. There are suggestions below for improving the article. If you can improve it, please do; it may then be renominated.
Review: August 26, 2006. (Reviewed version).

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Sentence on pseudoscience

In this edit, the following sentence was removed from the lead section without a rationale or edit summary (by an editor who has an unhelpful habit of making major changes without writing edit summaries):

Certain types of psychotherapy are considered evidence-based for treating some diagnosed mental disorders, and other types have been criticized as pseudoscience.^[1]

The pseudoscience part was added by Beland in this edit. I am not going to restore the sentence myself, but I am noting it here in case anyone else considers it important. Biogeographist (talk) 12:41, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the note, I've re-added the sentence. -- Beland (talk) 16:46, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

References

^
For example:
- Lilienfeld, Scott O. (December 2015). "Introduction to special section on pseudoscience in psychiatry". The Canadian Journal of Psychiatry. 60 (12): 531–533. doi:10.1177/070674371506001202. PMC 4679160. PMID 26720820. Although the boundaries separating pseudoscience from science are fuzzy, pseudosciences are characterized by several warning signs—fallible but useful indicators that distinguish them from most scientific disciplines. ... In contrast to most accepted medical interventions, which are prescribed for a circumscribed number of conditions, many pseudoscientific techniques lack boundary conditions of application. For example, some proponents of Thought Field Therapy, an intervention that purports to correct imbalances in unobservable energy fields, using specified bodily tapping algorithms, maintain that it can be used to treat virtually any psychological condition, and that it is helpful not only for adults but also for children, dogs, and horses.
- Lee, Catherine M.; Hunsley, John (December 2015). "Evidence-based practice: separating science from pseudoscience". The Canadian Journal of Psychiatry. 60 (12): 534–540. doi:10.1177/070674371506001203. PMC 4679161. PMID 26720821. TFT, a treatment applied to mood, anxiety, and trauma-related disorders, is a prime example of practice founded on pseudoscience. TFT is based on the premise that bodily energy imbalances cause negative emotions. Treatment is purported to rectify imbalances by tapping on acupuncture meridians. Virtually no peer-reviewed research supports this treatment rationale. With only methodologically weak reports available in the literature, the so-called science cited to support TFT is primarily anecdotal and does not rule out placebo effects. Despite these criticisms, the TFT website continues to advance unsupported claims about TFT's ability to cure almost any emotional problem.

Wiki Education assignment: Psychology Capstone

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 9 January 2024 and 26 April 2024. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Peytonmk (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by Peytonmk (talk) 22:32, 2 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding adding parentheses to the name Reuterskiöld

@Biogeographist I noticed you reverted my edit saying it wasn't needed. I think there may be some confusion here. Adding double parentheses to a name in a citation doesn't change the way it looks it just bypasses the cs1 error "cite uses generic name" [[1]]. Because the name Reuterskiöld has the word Reuters in it it gets tagged for this error despite it being his actual name. CursedWithTheAbilityToDoTheMath (talk) 18:18, 28 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@CursedWithTheAbilityToDoTheMath: OK, I didn't know that. Please use edit summaries to explain your edits: WP:ES. Biogeographist (talk)

What is "a psychotherapy" vs. "psychotherapy"

The article switches from talking about and defining "psychotherapy" generally, to discussing different specific "psychotherapies" (e.g., CBT, DBT, and ACT). What, specifically, is "a psychotherapy" ? Is it something like "a collection of clinical practices, typically guided by some psychological models and empirical evidence" ? 4Aleph4Omega4 (talk) 16:33, 6 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@4Aleph4Omega4: Yes, "a psychotherapy" is a type of psychotherapy, as in List of psychotherapies. Relatedly, Category:Psychotherapies was moved (renamed) to Category:Psychotherapy by type. Biogeographist (talk) 21:29, 8 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Effect sizes

Meta-analyses across a range of psychological difficulties consistently report moderate to large effect sizes for evidence-based psychotherapies. Given this, I find it problematic to highlight a single study suggesting low effect sizes and the need for a “paradigm shift” as the central framing of the introduction—and then reiterate this claim, unchanged and unchallenged, twice more in the text. This approach risks presenting a distorted view of the broader evidence base.

For example, Munder et al. (2019) conducted a rigorous meta-analysis of treatments for depression and reported an overall effect size of d = 0.7, which is typically considered large.

Similarly, the phrasing “no reliable changes due to psychotherapy can be found in up to 33% of patients” strikes me as unnecessarily negative and oddly constructed. A more balanced and empirically grounded formulation would be: “Approximately 66% of patients experience reliable changes following a course of psychotherapy”, a statement that better reflects the field’s established findings without minimising its limitations.

In sum, I believe these formulations understate the considerable empirical support for psychotherapy’s efficacy and do not accurately represent the current state of the evidence.

Reference Munder, T., Flückiger, C., Leichsenring, F., Abbass, A. A., Hilsenroth, M. J., Luyten, P., … & Wampold, B. E. (2019). Is psychotherapy effective? A re-analysis of treatments for depression. Epidemiology and Psychiatric Sciences, 28(3), 268–274. P.S.S. (talk) 20:47, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

[1] For example:
Lilienfeld, Scott O. (December 2015). "Introduction to special section on pseudoscience in psychiatry". The Canadian Journal of Psychiatry. 60 (12): 531–533. doi:10.1177/070674371506001202. PMC 4679160. PMID 26720820. Although the boundaries separating pseudoscience from science are fuzzy, pseudosciences are characterized by several warning signs—fallible but useful indicators that distinguish them from most scientific disciplines. ... In contrast to most accepted medical interventions, which are prescribed for a circumscribed number of conditions, many pseudoscientific techniques lack boundary conditions of application. For example, some proponents of Thought Field Therapy, an intervention that purports to correct imbalances in unobservable energy fields, using specified bodily tapping algorithms, maintain that it can be used to treat virtually any psychological condition, and that it is helpful not only for adults but also for children, dogs, and horses.

Lee, Catherine M.; Hunsley, John (December 2015). "Evidence-based practice: separating science from pseudoscience". The Canadian Journal of Psychiatry. 60 (12): 534–540. doi:10.1177/070674371506001203. PMC 4679161. PMID 26720821. TFT, a treatment applied to mood, anxiety, and trauma-related disorders, is a prime example of practice founded on pseudoscience. TFT is based on the premise that bodily energy imbalances cause negative emotions. Treatment is purported to rectify imbalances by tapping on acupuncture meridians. Virtually no peer-reviewed research supports this treatment rationale. With only methodologically weak reports available in the literature, the so-called science cited to support TFT is primarily anecdotal and does not rule out placebo effects. Despite these criticisms, the TFT website continues to advance unsupported claims about TFT's ability to cure almost any emotional problem.

[2] Lilienfeld, Scott O. (December 2015). "Introduction to special section on pseudoscience in psychiatry". The Canadian Journal of Psychiatry. 60 (12): 531–533. doi:10.1177/070674371506001202. PMC 4679160. PMID 26720820. Although the boundaries separating pseudoscience from science are fuzzy, pseudosciences are characterized by several warning signs—fallible but useful indicators that distinguish them from most scientific disciplines. ... In contrast to most accepted medical interventions, which are prescribed for a circumscribed number of conditions, many pseudoscientific techniques lack boundary conditions of application. For example, some proponents of Thought Field Therapy, an intervention that purports to correct imbalances in unobservable energy fields, using specified bodily tapping algorithms, maintain that it can be used to treat virtually any psychological condition, and that it is helpful not only for adults but also for children, dogs, and horses.

[3] Lee, Catherine M.; Hunsley, John (December 2015). "Evidence-based practice: separating science from pseudoscience". The Canadian Journal of Psychiatry. 60 (12): 534–540. doi:10.1177/070674371506001203. PMC 4679161. PMID 26720821. TFT, a treatment applied to mood, anxiety, and trauma-related disorders, is a prime example of practice founded on pseudoscience. TFT is based on the premise that bodily energy imbalances cause negative emotions. Treatment is purported to rectify imbalances by tapping on acupuncture meridians. Virtually no peer-reviewed research supports this treatment rationale. With only methodologically weak reports available in the literature, the so-called science cited to support TFT is primarily anecdotal and does not rule out placebo effects. Despite these criticisms, the TFT website continues to advance unsupported claims about TFT's ability to cure almost any emotional problem.

[1]