As in my last post, I am going to continue on the theme of what treatments actually work, and if any of the magical, instantaneous, easy cures actually work.
As I have talked about before, the only common remedies for anxiety, panic and phobias that have any scientific backing are the drug therapies (Citalopram / Celexa, fluoxetine / Prozac, Xanax and Valium etc) and CBT. There is also a decent body of evidence supporting the use of MBSR (Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction). The reason given for the lack of data on other forms of treatment is that proper experimentation is very expensive. This is indeed true.
To try and get round this, I am devising my own experiment. Which I cannot say is really scientific, but I think it is interesting any way. I am going to use a popular search engine to look for personal recommendations. I want to see what has worked for who, how they went about it and what they said about it.
Why am I doing this? Good question…
It struck me the other day that there is a lot of hot air and hubris surrounding alternative healthcare. I was watching a BBC documentary about addictions and they featured two therapies that interested me: EMDR and TFT.
I have seen both of them on documentaries before, usually on either diet or anxiety programmes. Interestingly they almost always fails. There are notable exceptions, but for the most part the people they show on the programme do not get over their problems. And the therapist is left telling the camera how much he believes in the therapy, and how such failures are unusual. In fact for all the hype surrounding these therapies, and all the claims of the therapists, there never seems to be anyone around who will put their hand up and say “yes, it cured me!”.
Is it in fact possible that these therapies are absolutely worthless – especially when you bare in mind how many people are successfully treated by the placebo effect! These treatments can be a good way, or at least are perceived to be a good way, to make money. And the therapists, blinded by charismatic gurus, can be lead to believe that something works when it doesn’t. For example, when TFT or EFT doesn’t work the therapists and experts are quick to blame toxicity. Toxicity occurs when a chemical such as soap powder causes the treatment to be blocked in some way. As most people can’t or won’t go through the rigours of removing all potential toxins it is an easy get out from the situation for the therapist.
I once read an interview with a woman who had been at the forefront of an energy therapy that involved tapping. She said that she suddenly noticed that what they had recorded as an 85% plus success rate was in fact much closer to 30%, it was just that they repeatedly removed results from their statistics that didn’t make the therapy look successful. There was nothing malicious in this, she argues, they were just so caught up in the whole thing that they were certain it worked, and wanted to prove it.
So. I am going to google three phrases:
“EMDR worked for me”
“EFT worked for me”
“Hypnosis worked for me”
The quotation marks are important, they will ensure that only pages which contain exactly those phrases will be returned. There is no mention of anxiety, panic or phobias here. That is deliberate. I am trying to see if they work. I don’t care if I find they work for quitting smoking or anything else. I am going on the assumption that if they work, then they work across the board. It’s a dangerous assumption, but I warned you this wouldn’t be perfect.
Results:
“EMDR worked for me” got 6 returns.
“EFT worked for me” got 70 returns.
“Hypnosis worked for me” got 514 returns.
Interesting results. It is also worth looking at the quality of the results. Quite a few came from sites which are obviously trying to sell a certain cure – “it worked for me – send me $100 and it can work for you too!”. But there are some people out there who were helped by these three therapies. More than just the placebo effect?? Who can say without proper science!
