The ability to choose an evidence-based psychotherapy on the base of scientific knowledge has been a negligible factor in the evolution of the human brain. One could argue that empirical science itself fosters a style of thinking that is counter-intuitive for many of us. Personally I believe that the human way of trying to identify […]
Internet-based psychotherapy is a hot topic since a few years. The main advantage is money: Computers are much cheaper to run than licensed psychotherapist. So if a computer could achieve the same or nearly the same treatment outcome as a human expert this would be a huge advantage, as computer systems can be replicated almost […]
[http://www.vrphobia.com](http://www.vrphobia.com) (which turned up as #1 in Google) is an organization that is called Virtual Reality Medical Center. They treat all kinds of anxiety related disorders, but seem to focus mainly on specific phobias. After the intake session the client is taught skills to suppress automatic fear reactions. In the following sessions the client is […]
While research has found differences between novice and expert therapists those differences do not seem to be significant for treatment outcome. A crucial factor in this finding is that certain processes keep the psychotherapist from learning effectively. One of those processes is the lack of good feedback (on the macro and the micro level). If […]
Idea for an experiment: I proposed to prime therapists with the case of a patient that could easily be identified as one disorder (for example depression or dementia) and then present another case in which the information is ambiguous and thus allowing the possibility for both disorders to be present. Having read the articles by […]
In one of the last posts I summarized three articles that all came to the conclusion that there was no big difference between novice and expert therapists. I came to the conclusion that the tasks used were presenting ready-to-judge material, which was in no way ecological valid. I hypothesised that the true merit of expertise […]
The probabilistic nature of behavioural phenotypes proclaims that people with a specific syndrome will have a heightened probability to exhibit specific behavior or developmental pathways that are different to others, who do not have the specific syndrome. The advantage of probabilistic nature of the construct is that it can account for exceptions and it is […]