Neurobalm Part II: The Pseudo-Neuroscience of Couples Therapy
If you are a therapist or a patient, you may be more able to debunk bad neuroscience used to sell therapy than you think. Stay sober and skeptical while watching videos and reading press releases.
Jan 2024 Introduction: A time of warring brands of couples therapy and cyberharassment of critics of bad science
In 2014, almost at the exact time of the debate in social media about the pseudo-neuroscience of couples therapy, the editor of the esteemed journal Family Process @Evan Imber-Black reflected on four decades as a scholar, trainer, and practitioner of couples and family therapy. Much of her editorial, Eschewing Certainties: The Creation of Family Therapists in the 21st Century expressed optimism about the future of the field. Yet, she also warned about the damaging effects of warring brands of therapy on the health of the field:
Our invidious history of model wars continues in a new form. Just as the model originators of 50 years ago claimed they had discovered the way, the light, and the truth, so some models of the present make this claim. Demands for fealty, coupled all too often with a pyramid system of expensive training to become a “certified” fill in the blank therapis…