Which Executive Psychotherapy
If you are considering getting help for a problem that is impairing your performance, you may have asked, which executive psychotherapy is best? Which executive psychotherapy will work for me?
If you have started your supplier research you will already have spotted that most therapist claim THEIR approach to psychotherapy is best.
Alas, that flies in the face of the evidence. Here is what the meta-research evidence concludes. All therapies are as ineffective as each other. Yes, you read correctly: ineffective!
Here are some stats. Around a third of people get better with NO THERAPY. Around a third get better with therapy, any therapy. Around a third experience no change.
When you dig down to the next level of research, causal chain efficacy, the meta-research clearly indicates that it simply DOES NOT matter which therapy is used. You could make one up, (no, I am not kidding). As we have seen from the thousands of therapy methods in existence, that has been done thousands of times already, and will continue to be done.
Here is what actually works. It is also what most predicts successful outcomes in therapy… drum roll… rapport: the quality of the relationship with the therapist is HUGELY more predictive of outcomes than the specific therapy used.
Let’s use some polemic to make this clear. You could make up a therapy based on tapping your forehead, or moving your eyes in a particular way, or jumping up and down on the spot, or sitting inside a triangular frame, or making loud screaming noises, and it would APPEAR to work, IF, and only IF the quality of the relationship with the therapist was excellent.
Those who have studied the efficacy of therapies will know that ridiculous therapies like the above have indeed been created, used, AND achieved results for some people… of course, based on the quality of rapport with the therapist.
Here is my advice. Don’t choose a therapeutic method, choose a therapist who is simply brilliant with people. The quality of your rapport with the therapist is MASSIVELY more important than whatever therapeutic methods are used.
Speak to your potential therapist on the phone. Determine how well you get on. If you don’t feel like you’ve known the therapist for years within the first telephone session, find someone else.
I can’t emphasise enough: how well you get on with your therapist is THE FACTOR, if you are going to solve your problem or successfully address your challenge.
Copyright 2016 Prof Nigel MacLennan