People with mental health problems are victims of a ‘scam’ therapy that is wasting vast sums of money, a leading psychologist has warned.
They are being misled because the short-term fix offered by Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) does not have a lasting benefit, says Oliver James.
The most popular of the ‘talking therapies’ CBT aims to help people manage their problems by changing the way they think and behave to become more positive.
It is frequently recommended for people with problems ranging from anxiety and depression to eating disorders.
In the short-term, 40 per cent of those who complete a course of CBT, typically five to 20 sessions of up to an hour, are said to have recovered.
But ‘extensive evidence’ shows that two years on, depressed or anxious people who had CBT were no more likely to have recovered than those who had no treatment, said Mr James.
He said: ‘As a treatment, rafts of studies have shown it to be ineffective in delivering long-term therapeutic benefits to patients with anxiety and depression.
‘While studies show that in the short-term - six to 12 months - patients who have received CBT are more likely to report themselves as ‘recovered’ compared to those who have received no treatment, these results are not sustained in the long-term.
‘CBT is largely ineffective for the majority of patients. It is in essence a form of mental hygiene.
‘However filthy the kitchen floor of your mind, CBT soon covers it with a thin veneer of ‘positive polish’.
Unfortunately, shiny services tend not to last. CBT fails to address the root cause of many people’s problems, which often stem from traumatic experiences during their childhood.
The UK Government has pledged up to £400 million on treatment programmes which mostly use CBT and it is recommended as frontline NHS treatment for many mental health issues.
Mr James, a chartered psychologist, author and broadcaster, delivered his argument to the CBT industry at the Limbus Critical Psychotherapy Conference in Devon this weekend.
He and other psychotherapists are calling on the Government and policymakers to refocus funding into alternative talking treatments, such as psychodynamic therapy, which focus on addressing the root cause of people’s cognitive problems.
The NHS has been advised that CBT may be offered to patients with a range of conditions by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), the guideline body.
It is free on the NHS after referral by a GP but not available in all areas and there can be long waiting lists.
The cost of private therapy sessions varies, but it is usually £40 - £100 a session.
Many mental health groups welcome the shift in emphasis in recent years away from medication towards personalised therapy.
But Mr James says research shows CBT is no more effective than placebo in treating anxiety or depression
He says proponents have ‘mis-sold’ the treatment to policymakers and the public, who are wasting their time.
2 comments:
This is irresponsible journalism at its finest. This leading psychologist is attacking empirically supported treatments for people with a thorough misunderstanding of what CBT is.
1) He is misrepresenting the research. There are studies that demonstrate long term improvements from CBT. He also is reducing the argument to CBT in general when it is well understood in the field of psychology that CBT is very effective for certain problems and less effective for others.
2) For anyone selecting a treatment in the future, do your own research about what is effective for your particular goals. The red flag here is that he provides no evidence to support his treatment of choice other than to attack another treatment. He is spinning the results to look unfavorably to advance his own therapy instead of doing the work necessary to demonstrate the effectiveness of his own treatment.
Also, The statement that Mr. James makes about CBT being no more effective than placebo for anxiety or depression is absolutely false, especially for anxiety disorders. There have been many studies done that have demonstrated that CBT is more effective than both placebo and medication for anxiety. This is just another way that Mr. James provides support for the fact that he is willfully ignorant of the literature.
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