Saturday, 6 March, 2010 21:24 Last Updated on Tuesday, 9 March, 2010 14:14
In a recent issue of Newsweek, (Ignoring the Evidence. Why do psychologists reject science? October 12, 2009), Sharon Begley opined about the analysis published in the November 2009 Perspectives on Psychological Science concerning the disparity between what science can prove about psychotherapy and what psychotherapists actually do. She was basing her article on a report that actually first appeared in 2008 in Psychological Science in the Public Interest, the journal of the Association for Psychological Science (APS), co-authored by Timothy Baker of the University of Wisconsin, accompanied by an editorial written by Walter Mischel. [Editor's Note: For the extremely curious, the 145-page pre-publication draft is available HERE.] In the original report, Baker states that many clinicians “fail to use the interventions for which there is the strongest evidence of efficacy." (Begley, 2009) Baker’s report and the attendant responses have set off a firestorm in the media about psychotherapy and psychotherapy training programs.
