House of Cards

Rating:
Summary: Poor Critique
Review: Dawes starts with the conclusion he wants to prove, and then selects only studies which agree with it. We call this begging the question, or affirming the consequent. He ignores myriad studies, including those conducted by NIMH, which prove that Cognitive Therapy IS effective. Dr. Aaron Beck and Dr. Albert Ellis have pioneered new forms of therapy. To dismiss them out-of-hand is short-sighted.

Rating:
Summary: Poor Critique
Review: Dawes starts with the conclusion he wants to prove, and then selects only studies which agree with it. We call this begging the question, or affirming the consequent. He ignores myriad studies, including those conducted by NIMH, which prove that Cognitive Therapy IS effective. Dr. Aaron Beck and Dr. Albert Ellis have pioneered new forms of therapy. To dismiss them out-of-hand is short-sighted.

Rating:
Summary: A Step in the Correct Direction
Review: House of Cards: Psychology and Psychotherapy Built on Myth by Robyn M. Dawes, critically examines Clinical Psychology and exposes facts that many psychologists would rather have hidden. The author is an Experimental Psychologist and the 1990 winner of the APA William James Award. He is very bold in trying to uphold the truth and convincingly demonstrates what the title suggests.

Perhaps the most striking issue covered in this book is the discussion on studies that evaluate the efficacy of psychotherapy. In 1977, Mary Smith and Gene Glass published an article in American Psychologist which found that on a statistical level, psychotherapy works. Not that everyone improved, or no one got worse from treatment, but on a statistical level people were better off on the measure examined than someone chosen at random. Smith and Glass also found that the therapists' credentials (Ph.D., M.D., or no advanced degree), the therapists' experience, the type of therapy given (with the possible exception of behavioral techniques for well circumscribed behavioral problems), and the length of therapy were unrelated to the effectiveness/success of the therapy.

As Dawes states:

"In the years after the Smith and Glass article was published, many attempts were made to disprove their finding that the training, credentials, and experience of therapists are irrelevant. These attempts failed. (p.55)"

Very few books written by psychologists try to realistically look at psychology's flaws. Although psychology pays lip service to the concept of critically examining its tenants, it is seldom done. Mainstream psychology often dismisses books such as this one in passing as "harsh criticism" and ignores the message they offer.

Rating:
Summary: An excellent book, and a must for therapists.
Review: I am a therapist myself, so I naturally began reading this book with trepidation. But instead of the blanket attack I expected, I found instead a very carefully written book that exposes that deeply flawed foundations to much of current psychotherapy, pop psychology, and professional reputation. I read this book at a time in my own career when a respect for science and the need for verifiable information were re-emerging, and House of Cards has provided me with a number of insights and tools that have helped me to provide therapy that is more effective and that avoids pie-in-the-sky promises or beliefs. Dawes is right: although therapy is not a science itself, it should be founded on scientific knowledge.

Rating:
Summary: A House of Cards meets a breath of fresh air
Review: In this very important book, Dawes affirms the power and effectiveness of psychotherapy, and the fact that your wise aunt is probably better at it than any certificate encrusted psychotherapist. But since your wise aunt doesn't charge you any fees, and has a vested interest in seeing that you get your psychological act together, it makes the psychotherapy industry a veritable house of cards. Dawes assembles an impressive amount of empirical evidence demonstrating that minimally trained paraprofessionals can generally make better psychotherapists than their over credentialed peers. His findings are important in more ways than one, since if psychotherapists are no more effective than an empathetic paraprofessional, then the counseling techniques they use don't actually give a great vote of confidence to the humanistic 'New Age' blather that mandates happiness at whatever cost to our ability to realisticallly perceive the world. But again, in this whiny, self indulgent world, why shouldn't psychologists have a lot in common with another group of much beloved professionals who specialize in making common sense hard: namely lawyers!

Overall, Dawes doesn't offer much as an antidote to the rampant silliness that is modern psychology except for an appeal to common sense. A shame then that it took a book like this to reaffirm that common sense and a healthy skepticism are pretty good things to have, in spite of all those talking heads on TV who tell us otherwise!

Rating:
Summary: The other side?
Review: Perhaps things have changed remarkably in the ten years since Dawes had written this book. In my studies of the practice of therapy I have become familiar with a preponderance of the research that has been cited in this text. However, in my opinion, this is a very narrow spectrum of the research availiable on the effectiveness of therapy.

Mr. Dawes, in his text, forgets to mention a number of empirical findings that support the effectiveness of psychotherapy. I wonder at this. It is not as if he had to look these up individually, they are standard course work in any graduate program of psychology. Further, although Mr. Dawes frequently discusses research methodology, he fails to acknowledge that individuals with more severe pathology are less likely to be served by the lay person. In other words, modern psychology has been shown to be more effective than your wise aunts advice, even when you are comparing problems that differ in magnitude.

I am troubled by many of the conclusions that Mr. Dawes has made based on research performed on professions other than psychology. For example, Mr. Dawes contends medical school interviews are similar in nature to therapy - I can't see how he could possibly hope to support this. I feel the same about parol hearings or the many examples he gives from psychiatry. While psychiatrists may work in mental health settings, they obtain little or no formal training in psychotherapy and certainly constitute an experimental confound. Further, Mr. Dawes goes as far to say all psychotherapy is about building self esteem and that all therapists are more motivated by their clinical judgement than by research findings. Considering that Dawes argues for utilizing empirical findings in psychotherapy - you would hope he was insightful enough to avoid these types of sweeping, emotive arguments.

In general, some forms of therapy have been shown to be less effective than others. Some therapists still cling to these and to their professional judgement. However, a modern curriculum in psychology will include several advanced statistics courses as well as numerous research and methodology classes. Many modern psychologists line their bookshelves with empirically proven treatments - and use them. Further, there is a growing movement to keep data to show the effectiveness of interventions within individual treatment. Modern psychologists are sophisticated researchers and possess the requisite tools to both analyze and implement new interventions to track, assess, and encourage change. Mr. Dawes would do well to consider the arsenal of tools available to the average psychologist and then consider the assessment, nosologic, and diagnostic ineptitude common in the medical sciences before again making these comparisions.

That Mr. Dawes has raised some valid points is not an issue. Most of these are points that are frequently discussed within the field of psychology to monitor strengths and weaknesses. However, many of the claims Mr. Dawes makes are more a factor of popular culture than the actual practice of psychology, are based on dated publications, or are unsupported opinions that fly in the face of his very thesis of objective empirical reasoning. As a result of this, I find Mr. Dawes arguments to be one sided, his research to be incomplete, and some of his conclusions to be rather naive.

Rating:
Summary: One of the few good critiques of psychotherapy
Review: Psychotherapy is the one questionable practice that still is widely thought of as a medical science, when it is neither medicine nor scientific. Dawes' book, along with Ofshe's & Watter's "Therapy's Delusions," helps reveal the seriously flawed underpinnings of psychoanalysis, that "great confidence trick of the twentieth century," as Peter Medawar put it. Dawes' book basically says that, while talking about problems can help one, one need not pay for the so-called services of "therapists" when a good friend will do. I hope the day arrives when psychotherapy is recognized for the pseudoscience it is and is no longer paid for with our insurance dollars. Dawes' book will help pave the way for a wider criticism of the field, I think. Too bad there are so few books like Dawes' out there.

Rating:
Summary: A Masterpiece of a Book
Review: Robyn Dawes has critically examined a variety of commonly-held myths in clinical psychology. In doing so, he debunks these myths through citing strong research evidence that contradict their basic tenets. The field of clinical psychology largely seems guided by a variety of pop-culture notions (e.g. that self-esteem is a necessary precursor to every form of "psychological health") fundamentally based in Western ideologies of hedonism. Dawes reviews this myth, as well as several others (e.g. psychologists possess "special abilities" beyond those of minimally trained people, most who suffer from traumatic childhood events are destined to live a psychopathology-ridden life, etc.) and presents the accumulating evidence that goes against popular notions of psychology. This book is the book for the social scientist who feels that psychology should be the "science" of human behavior, as well as a gem of a read for those in the general public who want a more accurate impression of the field, including what it can and cannot offer.

Rating:
Summary: Psychology does NOT work
Review: Robyn Dawes in HOUSE OF CARDS exposes the ill-fated hand that the psych industry has been dealing to the world since psych began.

Psychology doesn't work. Perhaps Woody Allen in a 1966 skit said it best,
"After 26 years, I walked out of the psychotherapist's office, finally cured."

Have you ever heard that? No! Of course not! How many years of psychotherapy does one need before one is cured and free at last!?! You see, psychology does NOT work, and Dawes exposes most of the major flaws with the money-making psych industry. I recommend this book as required reading for anyone in the psych field, the "Rent-A-Friend Industry", as Dr. Ed Bulkley so accurately describes on his daily talk show and in his books, WHY CHRISTIANS CAN'T TRUST PSYCHOLOGY among them.

As a resident of a boys home for two years and nine months, to which I returned a year and a half later as a Psychology major during my freshman year in college, and where I worked for over seven years, as well as being married to a psychiatric R.N. since 1982, let me give it to you straight:
PSYCHOLOGY DOES NOT WORK!

What works is the individual, the "client", getting motivated to the point where appropriate, positive action is taken. And how to do that is anyone's guess. It's really up to the individual--and, it's up to the grace of God.

Most of the "diseases" that the "mental health" professionals talk about; i.e., as found in the ever-shifting sand of the always-changing DSM, are actually based on good old-fashioned SIN. But, you add the lie of Evolution to the curriculum, you take God out of the picture, then eliminate common everyday friendships and what do you get, presto, a recipe for the $ucce$$ of the psych industry.

Why haven't we heard of any successes in psychology? Heck, if you broke your leg, after an exam, an x-ray, a cast and a few weeks, you'd be healed, even if you had to throw in some physical therapy, you'd be better rapidly. Why doesn't psychology work that way--I believe it is because psych is trying to make excuses for sin, coddle the sinners and ca$h in on the ignorant.

At the "residential treatment center for emontionally disturbed adolescent males" where I worked, we did a research project. Only 1.8% of all residents between 1920 and 1975 ever got out and stayed out of need for more services. How's that for a batting average!?!

Again, it illustrates what Dawes describes so eloquently:
Psychology does NOT work.

Rating:
Summary: A must read for consumers and practitioners of mental health
Review: Robyn Dawes, in the House of Cards, takes great pains to carefully document the most common and dangerous myths that underlie the fields of mental health treatment. The author's writings are firmly grounded in research, and the conceptual integrations are presented in a manner that is easy to understand for both the students of mental health related disciplines, consumers of mental health, and the seasoned mental health professional. In this book, Dawes models one of the central goals of college education; the value of critical analysis. Further, she sets the stage for mental health professionals to behave in a manner that is consistent with the research, and thus finally hold themselves accountable for the work they do with clients. A magnificent book with wide ranging implications for mental health professionals and their consumers. Pay attention, this book is the real truth about the approaches used to alleviate the suffering of clients of mental health professionals. Be accountable!!!