Topic: The Skeptic's Guide to Psychiatry/Psychology (and or mental health/illness)

[Cowtown Cody]

Of course there's The Brain Science Podcast, if you have the time for it.  I really like it, and they have lots of very high quality guests from an array of different brain-related fields and perspectives.

I'd personally recommend "How the Brain Works" by Steven Pinker as a really good, easy-to-grasp overview.  I refer back to it often when I get a little confused about things.

Ramachandran and Sachs are both really interesting.  There's also Michael Gazzaniga; he's a little more technical, but still a good read.

[cedric86]

http://therapistproject.org/

This is fantastic! It's too bad the Find a Therapist link isn't live yet. I had a therapist who helped me a lot a few years ago, but I'm pretty sure she had a few woo-woo beliefs. I've been thinking about going back to her, because we had a good therapeutic relationship and never got into any mysticism, but I'm afraid if we go too deep that shit is bound to come up.

[Citizen Skeptic]

Of course there's The Brain Science Podcast, if you have the time for it.  I really like it, and they have lots of very high quality guests from an array of different brain-related fields and perspectives.

+1

I've listened to all of them and they are very good. Plus the good doctor does transcripts.

[cedric86]

The Brain Science Podcast is excellent, I highly recommend it.

[WC]

3 votes (so far) for Brain Science Podcast. Will be checking this out today 

[WC]

Oi! I went looking for this in the Health, Fitness, Nutrition, and Medicine board, where I originally stuck it cause it's a medical/mental health kind of topic, you know, medicine and health and avoiding quackery and whatnot. What gives?

Anyway.

So, I was looking for a comprehensive definition of panic disorder for agoraphobia for another unrelated thread and found what I was looking for here; http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0001921/

But when I scrolled down, this stuck out at me;

CBT involves 10 to 20 visits with a mental health professional over a number of weeks. CBT helps you change the thoughts that cause your condition. It may involve:

• Gaining understanding and control of distorted feelings or views of stressful events or situations
• Learning to recognize and replace panic-causing thoughts
• Learning stress management and relaxation techniques
• Systematic desensitization and exposure therapy, in which you are asked to relax, then imagine the things that cause the anxiety, working from the least fearful to the most fearful.

Gradually exposing the patient to the real-life situation that causes the fear has also helped some people overcome their fears.

Because I've never made it past a third or fourth visit going in attempting CBT, is this the standard fare (esp. the bolded bit), or what one would expect? Many piles of money and many many many hours of my time have been wasted on dozens of quacks who have tried to get me into goofy things for the stress management and relaxation bits.

Now I'm off looking for more in depth info on CBT and exposure therapy, and tips on screening out the quacks who push crap like Watsu, TM, Carlos Castaneda and peyote Tensegrety (true story), or for sale self-help CDs on their patients.

[Karyn]

I would think 10 to 20 at a minimum, just to see minor improvements, especially for a more severe disorder.  You don't expect to become an expert guitar player, or even a basic guitar player, after only 4 session.  You are completely reshaping your thought patterns, and that takes a lot of effort and practice.  Don't think you are going to get the magical sentence from the psychologist that clears up everything that is wrong with you.  Much like losing weight or learning a new skill, changing your behavior must be continually practiced and involves a lifelong effort.

[Cowtown Cody]

I actually think that's one big spoiler that people who seek psychological help for things don't hear often enough, so thanks for saying it.  It's not a question of sudden insight into your condition, it's a question of getting good at changing your behavior.

And your conscious thought patterns are a "behavior" just like anything else you might do.  You can have bad habits, self-destructive or self-sabotaging tendencies, or just have been doing the wrong thing for too long.  It takes a lot of time, effort, and practice to get good at intercepting those.

[WC]

Well, like I said, it's usually by about the third or so visit where I realize I'm eyeballs deep in the psychologist's own brand of woo. Freaky deaky woo seems to be a ubiquitous phenomenon in practicing psychologist lands. I think a constant problem for a lot of people is finding someone they can work with. That's the rub. The will and commitment to very longterm and difficult cognitive and behavioral changes may be there, but a proper professional isn't. One grows weary (and broke) wading through an endless swamp of woo-ish crap.

[cedric86]

I feel your pain, WC. It might help to get advice from friends who have sought counseling, to see who which approaches were used and if there was any woo. I would also recommend checking out the websites of any potential counselors. Many of them have websites nowadays, and the pseudoscience is sometimes readily apparent. Some do a good job of hiding it, but you can probably weed out a lot of the wooiest with a quick Google search. You also might consider that some of the stuff you consider woo really isn't. (I'm not doubting your experience at all—there is a lot of woo in the mental health profession!) For example, I think there is something to relaxation exercises and meditation; it is possible to eliminate all the spiritual crap from meditation and what's left is a practice that many people find beneficial.

I hope you find something that works for you. I know I can't wait for The Therapist Project to go live. No matter what, it's going to be a lot of work. I've been strongly considering going back into counseling, but I'm sort of dreading it because I know it's going to be a lot of work. I'm oddly content being miserable, it doesn't take any work at all.

[WC]

We pay a lot of attention to CAM and pseudo sciences masquerading as medicine, and we pay a lot of attention to weird beliefs, but there's not a lot of talk about the funny business rampant in the practice of psychology.

For example, I think there is something to relaxation exercises and meditation; it is possible to eliminate all the spiritual crap from meditation and what's left is a practice that many people find beneficial.

Therein lies the crux. Once we eliminate all the spiritual crap from meditation, we're left with this; deep breaths in a comfortable, relaxed, stress free environment with either little to no sounds or reassuring sounds, thinking about calm things, chilling the fuck out as the mind flakes it and checks out for a bit. And that's great, and I'm all for calling it what it is and doing just that, but show me a single therapist who doesn't wrap this up in nonsense mysticism or some ridiculously trendy pop psych flavor of the week sugar coating.

I hope you find something that works for you.

I appreciate the well wishes and advise, but, as I'm sure you can understand, after 27 years I've seen and heard and done it all, or at least given it the old college try. There are support groups and boards for gestures of support, I appreciate it, but we're all a little beyond that; we're dealing with a crazy ass field of kooks without much oversight or quality control. Don't get me wrong, you've suggested some very proactive and effective tips to weed out some quackery. There is a lot one can discern from a business's or practitioner's site and advertising, or from a quick Google search, or from customer reviews. Hell, even walking into a waiting room can reveal a great deal (hint; if it's a bit much with the feng shui or if there's a portrait of L. Ron Hubbard, or Jesus, or statues of Hindu deities everywhere, don't walk out, RUN). Taking a gander at their bookshelf during a consultation appointment can also provide some insight. I'd also suggest advice from, or a referral from your regular doc or medical health provider(s), if he/she/they see eye to eye with you or know what you're after, sometimes he/she/they may know someone, or know someone who may know someone. Advice and recommends from friends is often valuable, sometimes helpful, sometimes not so much. The input I've gotten about counseling and counselors from my secular/sciency/skeptic pals and from my MD and RN buddies of an evidence based persuasion is essentially the same input I give to others; they (consolers) are all nuts 

therapistproject.org is a great idea, but I immediately foresee a few problems; 1) therapists seeing no purpose in advertising to a perceivably invisible market, 2) no conceivable way for this to get off the ground, grass roots or word of mouth, 3) it seems, kooky and kookier and pandering to the prevalent faith of a community is really really good for business, and red crossed out graphics over crosses, stars and crescents, and stars of David is really really bad for business, which brings me to 4) even if some therapists do register, what we're going to see are huge regions without any therapists available, and maybe a few here and there near some, and just some, urban/metro areas. I hope I'm wrong about that last point.

[Karyn]

therapist project registry is anonymous, so the therapists aren't actually outing themselves.  You can hear more about how it works in episode 59 of Living After Faith.  Also, wow.  You have some serious defeatist thinking going on.

[Dirty J. Martini]

I appreciate the well wishes and advise, but, as I'm sure you can understand, after 27 years I've seen and heard and done it all, or at least given it the old college try.

You said you're in SLC, right? Have you always lived there? I'm just curious if it's worse there because of the church. I'm in LA and found a wonderfully normal therapist without much trouble at all. Maybe I just got lucky, but I went through my insurance company, if that helps at all. And believe me, there's no shortage of woo in Los Angeles! Anyway, it would be a pain, but maybe if there's another moderately large city not too far away it would be easier to find someone there?

Hell, even walking into a waiting room can reveal a great deal (hint; if it's a bit much with the feng shui or if there's a portrait of L. Ron Hubbard, or Jesus, or statues of Hindu deities everywhere, don't walk out, RUN). Taking a gander at their bookshelf during a consultation appointment can also provide some insight.

I actually have to laugh a little at that. I almost did just that because there was all sorts of eastern crap in the office on my first visit. But I forced myself to stick it out and "be open minded." It turns out that none of it was the therapists. She shares the office with another therapist, and it was all the other therapist's stuff. So maybe ask rather than just assuming. 

[Citizen Skeptic]

I'll confess that psychology never seemed like a serious field to me. The whole thing seems to be built on shaky premises.

[cedric86]

I had pretty good luck, too, and also live in a very New Agey, woo-friendly part of the world (the Pacific Northwest). As I said in an earlier post, I think my counselor may have had some out-there beliefs, but she simply never injected any of that crap into our sessions, and I think we met at least a dozen times so she had ample opportunity.

@Karyn - thanks for the Living After Faith link, I'm very interested to hear more about the Therapist Project.