Therapeutic conversations can produce measurable patient benefit even when the therapist’s explanatory stories (e.g., psychoanalytic childhood narratives) are factually incorrect. The mechanisms of benefit may be pragmatic, social, or evolutionary rather than the theory the clinician endorses.
— If therapy’s effects are largely independent of its stated theories, that should reshape training, insurance coverage, clinical research priorities, and how the public evaluates mental‑health claims.
Josh Zlatkus
2026.09.09
80% relevant
The article argues that many CBT‑named 'distortions' are evolutionarily adaptive features rather than conceptual errors; that supports the existing idea that therapeutic benefit can arise even when the theoretical framing is inaccurate, because interventions succeed by leveraging function (e.g., relationship, rehearsal, normalization) rather than literal cognitive veracity.
Seeds of Science
2026.04.29
78% relevant
Halassa documents that antipsychotics reliably reduce psychotic symptoms (voices, acute psychosis) while failing to restore broader cognitive and functional capacities, illustrating the pattern that treatments can help clinically even when the underlying theoretical model (dopamine‑central schizophrenia) is incomplete.
Josh Zlatkus
2026.04.15
100% relevant
Josh Zlatkus’s essay critiques Stephen Grosz’s psychoanalytic readings and offers evolutionary and situational alternatives as simpler, more plausible accounts while conceding that the therapy itself often still helps.