Does Therapy Work?

Is it worth spending valuable time and money on therapy to improve your mental health?

Talking about different forms of therapy almost makes you forget one very important question that the scientific inquisitive mind should be asking — does therapy even work?

Ever since the days of Freud, the number of therapies has skyrocketed. About 5% of the therapists describe themselves as psychodynamic — thus at least loosely basing their therapy on Freud’s methods. Almost 30% think of themselves as cognitive therapists, and another 30% of the therapists consider themselves eclectic — meaning, they use a mixture of all kinds of therapies. These days, you can find numerous new forms of therapy, ranging from “running therapy” to “mindfulness-based cognitive therapy”.

Numerous studies over the years have shown that around 60% of psychotherapy clients feel better after a certain period — think months here. That sounds like a good piece of evidence vouching for therapy. There are a few caveats, however.

First of all, control studies show that about 30% of the people who are on a waiting list to become a therapy client also feel better after a period of time. This means that out of the 60% of the clients that feel better after a while, half of them would have felt better even if they hadn’t…