The Wrong Type of Talk Therapy
By KEELY KOLMES
NYT
San Francisco
CONSUMER review sites like Yelp are a wonderful resource if you’re trying to find a reliable plumber or good hair salon. And they provide a great forum for customers looking to rant or rave. However, as these sites begin to cover more aspects of consumer life, complications arise — as, for instance, when people review confidential mental health care services.
As a psychologist, I worry that these reviews have the potential to harm both the provider and the patient.
It’s one thing to write online about your experience hiring a housecleaner, but posting about the treatment of addictions, sexual abuse, depression or chronic illness is a different matter. What patients might feel comfortable sharing today they might, tomorrow, wish they’d kept private. And while a reviewer can almost always delete or edit his post, it’s impossible to know who has already read it, or whether that information has been stored someplace else.
Of course, no one wants to be the subject of a bad review, but psychotherapy services are special. If you wait an hour for an appetizer, chances are that other diners will have a similarly bad experience. But unless a therapist regularly falls asleep during sessions, patients’ experiences in psychotherapy are more subjective. A certain treatment might help one person but not another. Something that works for one patient at a particular point in therapy might not work for him later, when his needs change. What makes one patient upset enough to write a bad review might not bother — in fact, might even help — another.
And psychotherapy can often bring up upsetting emotions. It’s important for patients to discuss their reactions, positive and negative, directly with their therapists. Even when someone decides not to return to a certain therapist, telling the therapist why can provide closure.
(More here.)
NYT
San Francisco
CONSUMER review sites like Yelp are a wonderful resource if you’re trying to find a reliable plumber or good hair salon. And they provide a great forum for customers looking to rant or rave. However, as these sites begin to cover more aspects of consumer life, complications arise — as, for instance, when people review confidential mental health care services.
As a psychologist, I worry that these reviews have the potential to harm both the provider and the patient.
It’s one thing to write online about your experience hiring a housecleaner, but posting about the treatment of addictions, sexual abuse, depression or chronic illness is a different matter. What patients might feel comfortable sharing today they might, tomorrow, wish they’d kept private. And while a reviewer can almost always delete or edit his post, it’s impossible to know who has already read it, or whether that information has been stored someplace else.
Of course, no one wants to be the subject of a bad review, but psychotherapy services are special. If you wait an hour for an appetizer, chances are that other diners will have a similarly bad experience. But unless a therapist regularly falls asleep during sessions, patients’ experiences in psychotherapy are more subjective. A certain treatment might help one person but not another. Something that works for one patient at a particular point in therapy might not work for him later, when his needs change. What makes one patient upset enough to write a bad review might not bother — in fact, might even help — another.
And psychotherapy can often bring up upsetting emotions. It’s important for patients to discuss their reactions, positive and negative, directly with their therapists. Even when someone decides not to return to a certain therapist, telling the therapist why can provide closure.
(More here.)
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