The hottest Psychotherapy Substack posts right now

Belief and expectation can significantly influence healing, often making the placebo effect just as powerful as actual medicine. When patients believe they will get better, it can boost their healing.
Therapy often works not because of specific techniques, but due to the relationship between the therapist and client. That caring connection can lead to real healing and change.
The effectiveness of therapy may not rely on the method used, but rather on the simple fact that someone is there to listen and support the client, making therapy a type of meaningful social interaction.

Three popular strategies to respond to the sense of impossibility: self-help, psychotherapeutic, and spiritual.
Beware of bypassing - engaging in good behavior in an escapist way to avoid facing real challenges.
Consider the Stoic Response: do the right thing even if it feels impossible, lacks recognition, or is painful.

There are over seventy types of therapy, each with its own method, but research shows they often work about the same. It's called the Dodo bird verdict.
The placebo effect plays a big role in therapy success. Just believing that therapy will help can lead to real changes.
Instead of focusing on which therapy type is best, it might be smarter to understand what makes therapy work, like a supportive environment and the client's expectations.

Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) may not be superior to other therapies for treating mental illnesses.
Studies have shown that CBT is effective for depression but not significantly more effective than other psychotherapies.
CBT's reputation as the "gold standard" may influence people to choose it, but other therapies may be just as effective.

Healthcare administration is negatively impacting the quality of psychotherapy
Managed care organizations prioritize cost-cutting over quality mental health care
Patients accessing therapy through managed care may receive compromised and watered-down treatment

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Psychologists are not legally required to affirm the gender identities of their patients.
Therapists in California can provide non-affirming therapy for gender dysphoric youth without risking their license.
APA guidelines caution against immediate affirmation and recommend a thoughtful, explorative approach when working with transgender individuals.

People handle stress differently, and there are identifiable brain patterns related to emotional resilience.
Emotion regulation techniques like reappraisal can reduce negative emotions and show increased brain activity in specific regions.
Studies suggest that activation in certain brain regions is linked to successful emotional regulation and reduced amygdala activity.

Heart rhythms are not just regular beats, they have many harmonics coordinating body systems.
Heart rate variability reflects the body's ability to adapt and recover, and can be improved with psychotherapy and biofeedback.
Cardio-pulmonary rhythm is crucial for overall health, and reduced heart rate variability is linked to disease risk.

Chain of Empathy Prompting (CoE) helps large language models understand and respond to human emotions better. It uses ideas from psychotherapy to recognize how a person's feelings affect what they say.
Emergent abilities in language models allow them to perform unexpected tasks without being specifically trained for them. CoE is an example of how these models can develop new skills through better understanding of context.
Understanding the emotional context of a conversation is crucial for effective communication between humans and AI. By recognizing feelings, AI can respond in ways that feel more supportive and understanding.