Psychology: More than just a couch

Just imagine it: A man, lying on a couch, talking about his life and his problems and staring at a nondescript point just beyond his gesticulating fingertips. Behind him, another man, with thin, wire glasses perched on the end of his nose, staring professional and concerned at a legal pad with a regal ballpoint pen, scribbling away on his right-over-left crossed legs.

That is probably one of the most classic pictures of therapy that exists, especially in all the memes these days. Truth be told, it is actually a legit form of therapy that some select psychologists, counselors, and psychiatrists may use from time to time. But it is far from what therapy looks like anymore, on the regular.

What comes to your mind when you think of the word "therapy"? What thoughts, images, phrases, problems, etc...do you come up with?

As a graduate student in clinical psychology, I have heard a lot of responses, even though I'm only in my first year of this five-year program. I have heard a lot of "how does that make you feel," and "you're diagnosing me," as well as smatterings of mind-reading and uncovering problems in people they didn't know they had.

I want to tell you that there is a lot more to psychology and therapy and the entire field than just what you can google on the interwebs.

Probably the biggest thing I could tell you is that psychology is a science. It is firmly a science inasmuch as we can make it. Everything we do now started with a hypothesis, that was tested in specific environments, under definable conditions, using specific methods, and analyzed using widely-accepted statistical analyses. 

The results of those analyses defined what happened next: if a hypothesis was supported, it was recreated, to make sure it wasn't just a fluke. If that was supported, it made its way into the mainstream, to affect the way assessment, therapy, diagnosis, evaluation, and treatment were all completed with the general population. 

For example, if someone tried out a specific approach to therapy, and found that it worked, they reported it. Someone else read that report, and then tried to do the same thing to see if it worked for them. If it did, they reported that too. Usually it happens a bunch of times, where a bunch of people in a bunch of different places do the same experiment with different people to see if they get the same results. If they do, after a while, it can be pretty safely concluded that for the majority of people in those specific circumstances, the approach works.

If a hypothesis was not supported, and it never got support later on, it was not considered for further evaluation. So if Therapy Y was tried on a group of people and it didn't do anything positive, or even made them worse, it would be reported, and the likelihood of anyone using Therapy Y to treat anyone would be super slim. More often than not, if it was shown to be an ineffective approach, the official word in Psychologyland would be to not use it. Then if anyone did, they would be called cranks and might lose their reputation as good therapists. (The only exception to that would be if someone wanted to do a controlled experiment to test something about it (read: science)).

Since psychology is a science, Psychologyland adheres to a principle called Evidence-Based Practice. This means that psychologists (and hopefully psychiatrists and counselors too, though I can't speak for them because they fall under a different regulating body) only do what actually works, and has been shown to work a ton of times before. In principle, it's pretty much the same as why a doctor prescribes antibiotics for an infection: because it's been shown to work. If it didn't work, they wouldn't prescribe it, because they don't want to harm their patients. (In general. There are bad cookies out there everywhere. But I believe that most psychologists and most doctors are trying to help their patients, not make a buck from Big Pharma or whoever).

So, the takeaway: Psychology is a science. We only do what science backs up. We aren't mind readers, and we don't just try stuff out because we feel like it. We aren't perfect, but the vast majority of us have good hearts.

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Disclaimer: I am a graduate student of psychology, and therefore am not a licensed psychologist yet. I am here to offer helpful tidbits about this field I am dedicating my life to, but I should not replace formal education or therapy. If you disagree with something I say, please tell me. Science is a good way to show me I am sharing something inaccurate.
If you need help, please consider speaking to someone. There are many great resources out there, and they genuinely want to help.