Which therapies do more harm than good: Potentially harmful therapies revisited

Abstract Intelligence

Are some therapies doing more harm than good? This episode delves into the controversial topic of potentially harmful therapies (PHTs), exploring the evidence behind treatments that may cause more harm than help.

We examine a meta-scientific review of several therapies, including:

•Boot camps for conduct disorder, which are modeled after military basic training.

•Critical Incident Stress Debriefing (CISD), which was developed for emergency responders exposed to severe stress.

•DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education), which aims to limit underage substance use.

•Expressive-experiential psychotherapies, which focus on re-experiencing and intensifying strong emotions.

•Grief counseling, designed to assist individuals in coping with the death of a close contact.

•Scared Straight interventions, which involve at-risk juveniles being confronted by inmates.

This episode explores whether these therapies have sufficient evidence to justify their continued use. The discussion includes the challenges of identifying harmful therapies, and how the replicability crisis in psychology has led to a reevaluation of the credibility of clinical literature.

We look at the importance of evaluating the evidential value of claims of harm by considering factors beyond statistical significance, including:

•Misreporting of statistics

•Statistical power

•Replicability Index (R-Index)

•Bayes factors

Findings from this meta-scientific review highlight that the evidence underlying many PHTs is weak or ambiguous. However, some interventions such as Scared Straight and CISD show stronger evidence for potential harm. The episode concludes with a call for ethical research and practice that prioritizes the safety of patients. Clinicians are urged to critically evaluate treatments and avoid those with weak evidence or potential for harm. Researchers are encouraged to conduct more rigorous, collaborative trials, and to investigate the scientific basis of therapeutic mechanisms.
Read the article for yourself here
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/339718791_Potentially_harmful_therapies_A_meta-scientific_review_of_evidential_value

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