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[!summary]Therapy can help people with psychological problems like depression and anxiety. Research shows that therapy is often more effective than no treatment at all. While progress in clinical psychology has been slow, there have been some advancements in treatments for specific disorders.
Highlights
id716077372
Some therapies are plainly better than others for specific disorders, but what’s surprising is that there seems to be a general benefit to therapy regardless of type. In 1936, this was playfully dubbed the Dodo Bird Verdict. This is a reference to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, where the Dodo Bird ran a competition in which the characters who had gotten wet had to run around the lake until they were dry. When the Dodo Bird was asked who had won, he thought and said, “Everybody has won, and all must have prizes.”
id716077638
I spent 13 years at NIMH really pushing on the neuroscience and genetics of mental disorders, and when I look back on that I realize that while I think I succeeded at getting lots of really cool papers published by cool scientists at fairly large costs—I think $20 billion—I don’t think we moved the needle in reducing suicide, reducing hospitalizations, improving recovery for the tens of millions of people who have mental illness
id716077688
No new drug targets or therapeutic mechanisms of real significance have been developed for more than four decades
id716077777
You would know this if you have ever sought treatment. Talk therapy—where you meet with a therapist and discuss your problems—often works, but not always, and usually not quickly. And nobody quite knows why it works. It’s frustrating that the specific person you are talking to might make more of a difference than any techniques that they are using.¹ If there is a secret sauce, we don’t know what it is.