> ... in 1952 in which H. J. Eyesenck, an English psychiatrist, divided thousands of World War II veterans hospitalized for mental illness into three groups. One group was treated by psychoanalysis, another was given other kinds of therapy, and the third received no treatment at all. The men were then measured on an "improvement scale" with these stunning results: 44 per cent improved with psychoanalysis, 64 per cent improved with other therapies, and 72 per cent got better with no treatment at all.
> More recently, Werner Mendel, professor of psychiatry at the University of Southern California, directed a similar study. Trained psychoanalysts treated the patients in the first group, less highly trained psychologists and psychotherapists treated the second group, and the third group was under the care of employees with no formal training. The improvement ratings showed the following remarkable results: the third group, treated by staff members without formal training in therapy, showed the most improvement, whereas the first group, treated by staff members with the most extensive training in psychotherapy, showed the least improvement. Understandably, Dr. Mendel was startled by the results and repeated the experiment, with the same outcome.
Now, I'm not going down this rabbit-hole (I did once and wasted a lot of time!) but there is a lot of evidence that just a bit of attention from another person may be helpful, and affective attention may work wonders.
> there is a lot of evidence that just a bit of attention from another person may be helpful, and affective attention may work wonders
Anecdotally, this matches my second-plus-hand observations. In particular, professional "caring" is seen as clinical curiosity (at best) and less authentic, whereas ordinary-person empathy is more meaningful even in small doses.
Relatedly, addicts who seek traditional addiction therapy (anecdotally and second-plus-hand observationally) become lifetime (so far) addicts in how they perceive themselves, even if they quit the substance/behaviour. This tends to have a depressive effect. Addicts who make other changes in their lives which break the addictions have a more reflective view of the different times of their lives (non-addicted, addicted, then non-addicted again), and appear happier.
Addiction and depression are complicated things which I do not have any special knowledge of personally! However, I have varying adjacencies to many people with more complicated lives than my own. I share these anecdotes only because the observations are stark and seem important.
Which behaviors are reinforced more than a general level of consideration and positive regard?
I hadn't heard of this study. I had heard that the case count for psychoanalytic psychotherapy was insufficient to fairly cluster by symptoms as (e.g. hierarchical) features, even. And then Milgram's selection bias.
Is all "Talk Therapy" bad then, and what's a good way to actually help;
> Clean language offers a template for questions that are as free as possible of the facilitator's suggestions, presuppositions, mind-reading, second guessing, references and metaphors. Clean questions incorporate all or some of the client's specific phrasing and might also include other auditory components of the client's communication such as speed, pitch, tonality. Besides the words of the client, oral sounds (sighs, oo's and ah's) and other nonverbals (e.g. a fist being raised or a line-of-sight) can be replicated or referenced in a question when the facilitator considers they might be of symbolic significance to the client.
> The questions containing the verb ‘to be’ help to keep time still and are mostly used for developing individual perceptions:
> Questions containing the verb ‘to happen’ generally encourage the client to move time forwards or backwards:
> Questions which utilise other verbs are:
A prompt: Leadership and Public Speaking: which can utilize Clean Language; and which are necessarily suggestive of direction, course, or sequalae of events?
> ... in 1952 in which H. J. Eyesenck, an English psychiatrist, divided thousands of World War II veterans hospitalized for mental illness into three groups. One group was treated by psychoanalysis, another was given other kinds of therapy, and the third received no treatment at all. The men were then measured on an "improvement scale" with these stunning results: 44 per cent improved with psychoanalysis, 64 per cent improved with other therapies, and 72 per cent got better with no treatment at all.
> More recently, Werner Mendel, professor of psychiatry at the University of Southern California, directed a similar study. Trained psychoanalysts treated the patients in the first group, less highly trained psychologists and psychotherapists treated the second group, and the third group was under the care of employees with no formal training. The improvement ratings showed the following remarkable results: the third group, treated by staff members without formal training in therapy, showed the most improvement, whereas the first group, treated by staff members with the most extensive training in psychotherapy, showed the least improvement. Understandably, Dr. Mendel was startled by the results and repeated the experiment, with the same outcome.
Now, I'm not going down this rabbit-hole (I did once and wasted a lot of time!) but there is a lot of evidence that just a bit of attention from another person may be helpful, and affective attention may work wonders.
[0] https://www.religion-online.org/article/sin-guilt-and-mental...