To the editor: Visitor contributor Jonathan Alpert’s op-ed overgeneralizes on the subject of the state of psychological well being therapy (“AI remedy isn’t getting higher. Therapists are simply failing,” Sept. 30). In fact there are some dangerous therapists as there dangerous surgeons and dangerous attorneys. Nonetheless, there are various glorious therapists doing extra than simply listening to their sufferers.
I’m a licensed psychologist in California and have utilized cognitive behavioral remedy for nearly 50 years. CBT is an evidenced-based remedy that’s broadly taught in graduate colleges. Listening to sufferers is after all essential, however it’s not the one factor that well-trained therapists do. I educate my sufferers abilities to beat their fears, cease having panic assaults and scale back or remove obsessive-compulsive signs. Sufferers discover ways to problem their irrational pondering.
I, and my CBT-trained colleagues, will not be within the “enterprise {of professional} hand-holding” as indicated by Alpert. What we as professionals must do is to show shoppers find out how to determine competent therapists and never flip individuals away from in search of the assistance they want.
Gerald Tarlow, Santa Monica
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To the editor: Wonderful piece by Alpert on the generally dangerous penalties of psychotherapy that doesn’t transcend empathy and validation. Luckily, cognitive behavioral remedy has, for a lot of many years, centered on the sort of energetic, problem-solving and infrequently confrontative methods that encourage individuals to face their fears and be taught resilience and suppleness. I educate each my medical psychology college students and my sufferers the significance of the traditional Chinese language knowledge, “Go straight to the guts of hazard, for there you will discover security.”
Gerald C. Davison, Los Angeles
This author is a professor of psychology at USC.
