518: Why So Much Therapy Doesn't Work (And What Actually Does)

Episode 518: Why So Much Therapy Doesn't Work (And What Actually Does) Hosts:

Kevin Cornelius, LMFT

Dr. David Burns

Guest:

Jeremy Karmel

What happens when therapy doesn't work?

In this provocative episode of The Feeling Good Podcast, David Burns and Jeremy Karmel join Kevin Cornelius to examine some uncomfortable questions about the mental health field: Why do some people remain in therapy for years without getting better? Why do so few therapists measure their patients' progress? What happens when therapists become overly attached to one particular school of therapy? And how can we make psychotherapy more effective, accountable, and evidence-based?

Jeremy brings a particularly personal perspective to the conversation. After experiencing severe depression in college and trying numerous forms of therapy without success, he worked with Matt May using TEAM-CBT and experienced a dramatic recovery in roughly two weeks. That experience ultimately led him to become deeply involved in TEAM-CBT and in the development of the Feeling Great app.

David and Jeremy describe a list of more than 30 concerns about the way mental health care is commonly practiced today. They emphasize that the goal isn't simply to criticize therapists, but to encourage a radical improvement in the effectiveness of psychotherapy.

In This Episode 1. Can financial incentives create a conflict of interest?

David and Jeremy explore a difficult question: If therapists are paid by the session, is there an inherent incentive to keep therapy going longer than necessary?

They contrast long-term therapy without measurable improvement with a model in which the therapist's goal is to help the client recover as quickly and completely as possible. David argues that therapists should be able to define what successful treatment looks like and determine whether their interventions are actually producing meaningful change.