Ossorio: This thing says, "How might Descriptive Psychology cogently refute the current trend of evidence-based, empirically-based psychotherapy?"

I’m a little out of touch. I’m not sure just what’s going on today. I have a general sense but I’m not in close enough touch to be able to say much about that.

Now I will say that I have nothing against empirically based research on psychotherapy. If you’re going to justify doing therapy in a certain way, either you better have a damn good argument or some good empirical evidence, or both preferably.

So the only issue is what kind of therapy are they doing these days and how successful is it, and that I don’t know much about. My impression is that it’s not that successful but I could be wrong. My sense is also that here and there, there are therapies that are quite successful within some limit. So maybe we’re making progress. But as far as refuting it, I don’t know.

Audience: I didn’t write the question, but the trend is that just because somebody feels better, that’s not good enough. You have to be able to find an attractive way to describe that. Their ways of measuring it may be different from some of what we would consider valid and equal.

Audience: You have to write everything in behavioral terms, basically "objective".

Audience: Only certain things count as outcome measures.

Audience: Behaviors and symptoms.

Audience: But the broader thing here is simply the notion that you ought not to be doing any therapy that hasn’t been empirically demonstrated to be effective.

Ossorio: If that were true, you would never do therapy. Period. Because the first time you try it, it has not been proven. What are you going to do?

Audience: That’s their justification for not paying for it. [Laughter]

Audience: That’s a money thing.

Ossorio: Follow the money.

Audience: On the other hand if you decide to take advantage of this, and take your approach and think it through carefully and you know it works, it’s already developed and you do an empirical study. You’re one of those very few people who have empirical verification, so you’re the only thing they can use that someone will pay for. I know a couple of people who are working in that direction for that very reason.

Ossorio: Like I say, follow the money.