Not all the psychiatry news in the NYT is bad...

[Doc Samson]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/01/health/01psych.html?em

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[masterofmonkeys]

saw this on sciencedaily. It made me tear up a little. I can only hope that psychodynamic therapy--and all talk therapy--is on the upswing, given the recent surge of good press and better studies.

 

[OldPsychDoc]

"The review found no correlation between patients’ improvement and the length of treatment. But improve they did, and psychiatrists said it was clear that patients with severe, chronic emotional problems benefited from the steady, frequent, close attention that psychoanalysts provide."

Control group problem, don't you think?
Mightn't they have improved just as much with "steady, frequent, close attention from a cognitive behavioral therapist, a "life coach", or even a kindly grandmother, hairdresser, or bartender?

 

[billypilgrim37]

"The review found no correlation between patients’ improvement and the length of treatment. But improve they did, and psychiatrists said it was clear that patients with severe, chronic emotional problems benefited from the steady, frequent, close attention that psychoanalysts provide."

Control group problem, don't you think?
Mightn't they have improved just as much with "steady, frequent, close attention from a cognitive behavioral therapist, a "life coach", or even a kindly grandmother, hairdresser, or bartender?

The obvious control group would be the folks at the bar down the street. Where else could you spend several hundred dollars a week in a few convenient sessions where you leave each time feeling like you've made a breakthrough?

 

[OldPsychDoc]

The obvious control group would be the folks at the bar down the street. Where else could you spend several hundred dollars a week in a few convenient sessions where you leave each time feeling like you've made a breakthrough?

And never a scheduling problem, either. Convenient, flexible hours!

 

[masterofmonkeys]

"The review found no correlation between patients’ improvement and the length of treatment. But improve they did, and psychiatrists said it was clear that patients with severe, chronic emotional problems benefited from the steady, frequent, close attention that psychoanalysts provide."

Control group problem, don't you think?
Mightn't they have improved just as much with "steady, frequent, close attention from a cognitive behavioral therapist, a "life coach", or even a kindly grandmother, hairdresser, or bartender?

I need to read this study. But if it was simply a pre and post effect size (cohen's or hodge's) study, then control group is irrelevant. effect size is effect size. An interesting question would be if steady, frequent, close attention from a random person might not be just as effective. Although if I recall, that's how InterPersonal Therapy was discovered, so *shrug*.

 

[whopper]

The NYT's science section is certainly very insightful. I remember when the CATIE trial came out the NYT wrote an article on it that explained in layman's terms what it meant--for real--no distortions or misrepresentaitons.

Same with several other science stuff such as Mad Cow disease, other news companies were willing to distort it ot fit their agenda or sell papers.

 

[masterofmonkeys]

The NYT's science section is certainly very insightful. I remember when the CATIE trial came out the NYT wrote an article on it that explained in layman's terms what it meant--for real--no distortions or misrepresentaitons.

Same with several other science stuff such as Mad Cow disease, other news companies were willing to distort it ot fit their agenda or sell papers.

Yup! regardless of how you feel about the NYT in general, their science section is beyond solid. Same for several London papers (albeit harder to come by here).

One of the best science mags is NewScientist, a british publication which recently started being distributed here. It's weekly on top of that which is just awesome. I got hooked on it when I lived in London and was overjoyed to see it brought over here. Admittedly, it seems they do some editorializing in a direction I'm not overly fond of, but they have thus far made it clear what's editorializing and what's reporting on science news. I consider the subscription expensive but more than worth it.

I also visit www.sciencedaily.com daily and they have a section for 'mind and brain'.

 

[U4iA]

I also visit www.sciencedaily.com daily and they have a section for 'mind and brain'.

thanks. added the RSS feed to reader.google.com.
(http://www.sciencedaily.com/rss/mind_brain.xml)