Posted by gardenergirl on December 3, 2004, at 0:17:36
In reply to Re: immune dysregulation, posted by fires on December 1, 2004, at 20:14:53
> Well.I'm long on thoughts, yet short on words. You did post earlier: "Do use humor at times. Laughter is healing, as some wise woman on another board said (Jai) :)"
>
> I laugh> feel better, therefore I feel better because I laughed?? Correlation only.
>
> I've never seen one shred of scientific proof that laughter is healing. I believe that's a pop psych idea that got started and then developed a life of its' own (as do so many "feel good" theories).Well, it's actually a platitude. But laughter is a tool that can influence the flow of a session. And thus, it's valuable.
>
> You also stated:
>
> " Everyone please repeat after me: "Correlation does NOT imply causation.""
>
>
> Correct. Now if Ts would only practice according to that truism. (Most would be out of practice).Hmm, on what do you base this assumption?
>
> Correlation is the DX tool of psychology. Example: "you were sexuallly abused, therefore you feel bad." Correlation only.That certainly sounds more like an interpretation to me than someone invoking a scientific theory. Of course we cannot see these connections. But does that make attempts to piece them apart in order to give a client a structure within which to organize disturbing feelings a bad thing? I don't think so. We may not understand exactly how it works, but if it works and is not harmful, why the defense?
> There's quite a bit of evidence that Dep. **may** be caused by viruses. Certainly more evidence than the antiquated theories that it's cause by anger turned inward, or demonic possession.That "quite a bit of evidence" may be because scientific methods have improved since the time that anyone believed that mental illness was caused by possession. Did anyone really do a scientific study to find significant and robust evidence of the demon? And how do you operationalize anger turned inward? How do you measure it? Of course there are lots of physiological experiments. They are actually much much easier to conduct. It's much harder to develop and carry out studies which examine the components of psychotherapy process. I'm continually impressed by these types of studies and the level of wisdom and expertise required to carry them out.
gg
poster:gardenergirl
thread:422419
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20041123/msgs/423648.html