Psychotherapy is very effective in treating many problems that afflict us in the 21st century, including those conditions that underlie physical illnesses and contribute to our ever increasing health care costs (see first links below.) Why? Because many problems are the result of how we think, act, choose, and relate - all areas addressed in psychological health care. I've also written about the problems associated with the marketing of every human difficulty as a disease with a corresponding (expensive) medication to treat it (see second set of links below.)
Despite the evidence for its effectiveness, psychotherapy is less and less available. Why? The simple answer is money, marketing, and comfort. There's much more money to be made in medicalizing everything, especially for the mangled care insurance companies, BigPharma, and the psychiatric establishment.
People have also been convinced that there is (or should be) a pill for everything including what I've taken to calling Sucky Life Syndrome. Life is difficult for reasons within and sometimes beyond our control. We make choices every day that either worsen the difficulty or just fail to solve it. We feel bad about that. So, we look for something to take the bad feeling away without, of course, actually requiring any change on our part or in our circumstances. And BigPharma has just the answer we and they want. So, psychotherapy as a viable treatment option may be dying out. Not a good thing.....
Evidence for Effective TreatmentAnother Good Reason to Walk the Damn Dog
This link - What Brand Is Your Therapist? - describes what therapists must do to survive in our current health care system. It's pretty sad.
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