Why does therapy feel less effective the better you understand the cognitive approaches used by psychiatric professionals to treat patients? Also, how can professionals themselves seek effective treatment if this is the case?

Question

Why does therapy feel less effective the better you understand the cognitive approaches used by psychiatric professionals to treat patients? Also, how can professionals themselves seek effective treatment if this is the case?

In: Other

Answer 1

Psychiatric problems are fundamentally irrational. You can well know that doing nothing won’t improve your life, or that there’s no need to wash your hands compulsively, yet that won’t cure you. A lot of therapeutic approaches also rely on an irrational method to make you feel differently. (This can be very powerful, think of the placebo effect.) Critical thinking can defeat the therapy even if it doesn’t defeat the problem.