Your guess is as good as mine, doc
Why are we wasting our time on here?
Absolutely fair point. Normally I start out having a civil discussion with someone and then someone else hops in and derails everything, and we all know it's sometimes hard to accept that there's no changing some minds. Have a peaceful evening.
yeah, this is what happens to me every time someone tries to impress me by telling me they read The Body Keeps The Score, and I need to take a deep breath in first. If only we could market other therapies the way that EMDR was successfully marketed!
It’s got catchy initials maybe? Heck, DBT is probably more popular cause it’s easy to remember than because of Linehan’s research and development and it’s efficacy. I should start up a neuro-DBT clinic because adding neuro to everything means I can add 20% more revenue right off the bat. Maybe neuro-EMDR and add in a few brain scans and I’ll be rich.
Our program director would say, “you are the instrument”. I guess he was calling us tools! I don’t hear that concept much, but it makes so much sense to me. I am not the right tool for every patient or psychological issue, but there are times when I clearly am and developing the interpersonal skills and techniques to deliver techniques effectively might even be more important than delivering effective techniques. That sentence seems a bit misleading and I could see bad clinicians using it to justify incompetent approaches; however, inherent in the idea of being an effective instrument of psychological practice is a foundation in empirical reasoning to guide that practice.
That book and its author are the bane of my existence in the therapy and therapy-adjacent subreddits.
As someone who has wasted a ton of time and built a lot of frustration debating people online (and in this forum), I've recently adopted the "drop and dip" and rule. Basically, unless I am fairly certain someone is arguing in good faith, I say my part and don't reply. It's useless trying to debate someone online, especially WisNeuro
.
I would also add that social media and online environments are a petri dish for group polarization. Anonymity also encourages the extremism even more. I see the black-and-white thinking/extreme beliefs often in social media, even with topics that I assume are generally non-controversial.As someone who has wasted a ton of time and built a lot of frustration debating people online (and in this forum), I've recently adopted the "drop and dip" and rule. Basically, unless I am fairly certain someone is arguing in good faith, I say my part and don't reply. It's useless trying to debate someone online, especially WisNeuro
Also, I'm beginning to think a lot about how online interactions are altering or priming cognition into basically cognitive distortions. Basically hash tags, reduced characters, using up/down votes, etc., are increasing categorical thinking, black and white, labeling, etc. This serves to reduce nuance and I worry they're actually training our brains into having more maladaptive cognitive distortions. Sorry, I'm dealing with a hell of a migraine today. But, I may make a post about this when I'm feeling better - let's see if I need some more rizatriptan in a half hour. This one's got me feeling a little dizzy.
I was always a big fan of Jung, then I became a psychologist.
Exactly. A psychologist should be first and foremost a scientist. Regardless of what we specialize in, that is our common bond and foundation. The myriad other therapists out there don’t have that and it is part of what sets us apart still. I was talking to my front office staff today about why my schedule keeps getting full and I can’t get anyone into the counselors in training. Although she doesn’t know the difference really herself and can’t articulate it, her response was a pretty emphatic, like duh it’s obvious. People recognize the expertise that we bring and sure there will be people who are susceptible to flim-flammery, but many people have enough intuition and common sense to get the difference. Like I told my wife as we were trying to figure some of this out, becuase I do want to market the newer people bette, I guess you don’t need to be an expert chef to know the food tastes better in one restaurant over another.
I was casually browsing at a bookstore when I saw a book about it titled Every Memory Deserves Respect.
I've mentioned it here, but I learned that concerns were actually raised about EMDR and ethics due to the high cost of training when it's just Fancy Exposure. I tend to focus on that when arguing about EMDR.
Don’t go to r/therapists or r/askatherapist and express any opinion that EMDR is basically just basic exposure therapy with a bunch of psychobabble added in to fluff it up. You will be cratered with downvotes and have people argue with literally every period you misplace in your long, well-sourced reply citing meta-analyses showing your point. It’s wild how certain tx techniques create a cultish following like this. Similarly, r/askpsychology is a hotbed for Jungian and Lacanian analysis cultists who take every opportunity they get to dismiss CBT as “shallow” and “reductionist,” which I find to be the most asinine criticism of CBT one could possibly muster. Anyone who thinks CBT is “shallow” simply doesn’t have a beyond-surface-level understanding of CBT. The r/psychologystudents sub is also quickly being taken over by students who downvote anyone with a postgraduate education who tells them that Jung’s primary value is historical. I got downvoted yesterday on a thread for telling someone that they should focus less on reading Jung and more on reading textbooks and journal articles if they wanted to get a better understanding of contemporary psychological science. Multiple people asked me if I had ever “read Jung” or had only ever “read *about* Jung.” Ironically, I did read some Jung in my master’s program because my NYC school made us take a contemporary psychoanalysis class (since NYC is one remaining hotbed of analysis in the US, along with Boston and DC). I went to all their profiles out of curiosity, and all of them are regular posters on r/Jung or r/psychoanalysis, and none of them have or mention any graduate-level psychology or therapy training. One of them even said they were “awaiting my magisterial takedown of psychoanalysis, and any *proof* that analysis isn’t an accurate model of behavior.” It’s just maddening that too many people, some of whom are practicing midlevel professionals, do not understand basic standards of evidence and cannot critically evaluate scientific sources and studies. Don’t get me wrong…I’ve seen some less-than-scientific psychologists and some amazing midlevels, but the variation seems to be FAAAAR greater for the latter category, and the former category is generally a much higher mean competency, with less wild variability. Anyway, looks like I’m ranting again…Facebook, too. Facebook is FULL of people who haven't formally studied psychology who love Freud and Jung and Lacan and bash CBT (btw, most of the people who love Freud seem to be men. GO FIGURE).
As someone who loves getting into dumb internet arguments, especially about PTSD and evidence-based standards, I empathize with the OP. Also, I would argue that EMDR people's refusal to consider evidence-based practice isn't just exclusive to Reddit.
Btw, have you brought up that van der Kolk is kind of a terrible person who can't even get a university affiliation?
Edit: Oh god, I just saw that there's a whole CPTSD subreddit.
Yeah I don’t go on r/psychotherapy because of the weird “send us your license” thing
I think it's best we stay off such platforms, professionally. I realize that there is a natural "righting reflex" and all, but we need to get over that ****.
What are "downvotes? exactly? Like a "boo" or something?
Ackshually (ahem), Reddit only displays the net of up- and downvotes. I’m sure this is what you meant, but I wanted to provide more context. A post could have 1k upvotes and 1.1k downvoted and it will show as -100, so there’s actually no way to even see the balance of votes. You wouldn’t be able to see that the crowd is split ~50/50, only that 100 more people disagree than agree. Could be 0:100, could be 1k:1.1k…no way of knowing. So yeah, the systems sucks. And I agree that online forums do help breed tribalism, but I also think there’s some room for professionals to have discussions of evidence and research on these forums. I’m not sure what the path forward is, but with social media comes the need for professionals who are savvy to provide an outlet for *good* information to counter all the bad information. Some physicians have done a good job of this on YouTube (Doctor Mike, e.g.). I also agree that there comes a point where the argument is either clearly not in good faith or has stalled completely and then I just have to bow out.
That's not what "Karma" means.
Are imaginary internet points important to me? No. Is interacting with online proliferation of misinformation important to me? To the degree that I think I may, in any given scenario, have a positive impact, yes. I’m aware that this extent is often quite limited, hence why I made it clear that this thread was just a rant to vent steam…I am all too painfully aware that changing minds on the internet is an oft-impossible task.
Why is this so important to you? The world go round, a go round etc., etc.
I try to put energy into where I think it can have effect and the rest of it I just really don’t care. Oh you are destroying yourself by x, y, and a behaviors and don’t see it as a problem? Good luck with that. Please pay at the front desk on your way out the door. Nope, don’t really think you need another appointment. Is that aligned with detached compassion at all? Or am I missing the compassion part?
Not sure if that is a divergent opinion or if others here are making the point that reasoned debate doesn’t happen on Reddit. Haven‘t spent much time on Reddit so not sure how productive or unproductive that would be. I can say that I enjoy the debates on this forum because they frequently seem productive and have learned a great deal from them. I often have an opinion counter to others on here and when someone challenges that perspective, that is when I get the opportunity to learn. I would posit that if my goal was to convince others that my perspective on various topics was right, I would have probably become frustrated and left long ago. I engage mainly to learn and to share my perspective. Whether or not someone gains insight from what I bring or challenges it is not really something I take personally. Sure, there is a narcissistic part of me that seems to think that I would be happier if I received constant praise for every brilliant thing I say, but I am thinking that might not be the most healthy of schemas. Maybe it’s my wounded inner child. 😉 I am so glad that construct has become less popular. Helps me be less frustrated with current pop psychology.
I agree but only if both sides are debating in good faith.
Yet another example of why teaching reasonably advanced statistics and research design is so important, the representations and practices of PsyD programs notwithstanding.
Do MSW and counseling master’s programs teach any stats beyond t-tests, or methods beyond “This is a study. It’s good to have studies.”?
This is not to bash on MSW programs or students, but in my time in training, I've worked with MSW postgrads who had little to no understanding of t-tests. I imagine they may have had intro stats at the undergraduate level but had forgotten most of it by that point.
Before arguing with any adherent of EMDR about the scientific basis of the approach you should buy them a purple hat as a gift.
1000%
"Never argue with an idiot. He will just drag you down to his level and beat you with experience."
