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jawferlow
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Default May 19, 2019 at 03:15 PM
  #1
I recently discovered that my therapist is learning a therapy that I would call "woo"- homeopathy. Something that has no scientific basis in fact and has been proven to be no more effective than a placebo. I discovered by accident when I visited their website.

It has changed how I feel about them, but we never discussed it. They are not offering this practice to me, and it is not likely to happen. But I'm sure from what I have said to my therapist that it is obvious I would not agree with this kind of therapy.

Should I discuss it? How can I separate their beliefs? It is a bit of a deal breaker because how can I accept advice from someone who believes in something that I find so lacking in merit?
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Default May 19, 2019 at 09:47 PM
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How long have you been seeing the T? Do you have much of a rapport? Aside from this revelation, are you okay with how things have been going?

I see you're in the UK. Do you have the option to see a different T? I know the NHS can be restrictive.

Gotta say I'm with you on this - I would have a lot of difficulty seeing a T who believed in homeopathy, crystals, or various other things. It's worth bringing up with the T, if you are otherwise liking your work/relationship with them... but if you have other options, it's not unreasonable to draw a line.
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Default May 19, 2019 at 10:03 PM
  #3
For me, as long as they were not trying to fob something off on me that I did not believe in or agree with, then it wouldn't bother me whatever else the therapist believed in.

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Default May 20, 2019 at 01:45 AM
  #4
For me I would like my therapist to have basic reasoning and critical thinking capabilities, so that would be a no on therapists into homeopathy ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
If a T has different beliefs about religion or ghosts or something else that's not part of the natural world and cannot be proved or disproved then that's fine. But there's plenty of evidence that homeopathy is BS.

If switching Ts isn't an option, I think if it were me I might almost prefer not to address it and instead just try to ignore or forget about it. I don't think a conversation about it would help, and I'd just end up more frustrated.
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Default May 20, 2019 at 07:53 AM
  #5
Therapy has no scientific basis either. It's all weird theories often cooked up by some guru who "magically" came up with them. Obviously homeopathy is bs too but when it comes to therapy and therapists, of course these people are going to believe in all kinds of nonsense. Their whole profession is a sham to begin with.
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Default May 20, 2019 at 09:13 AM
  #6
I would just bring it up straight, as in "I noticed from your website that you offer homeopathic medicine services, but I have a hard time with the idea of that, because the science suggests that it is not effective. I'm having trouble with reconciling our beliefs. Can we have a conversation about this?"

Often I think it is difficult for people to accept differences of others they are close to. I don't see what homeopathy has to do with your therapy. If your T had a different political opinion or voted for a candidate you thought was a lunatic (not that this ever happens in the UK ), would you feel the same way?

And for me, I sometimes discuss alternative modalities for mental health/physical pain with my T, and I have alternately used acupuncture, herbal medicine, and (gasp, homeopathy, because I'm such a dummy) with good results for longer than I've been in therapy with him. I'm sure if someone did a poll on whether people discuss alternative methods (including light box therapy, which he also suggested a couple of years ago and I've found helpful for SAD symptoms) with their T's, I'm sure I would be in the minority.

But my T does know a lot about the neuroscience of trauma, including using his CLE's to attend seminars by leading researchers in the field at a neighboring big city. The fact that he understands this literature and can use it to help me understand some of my responses more deeply is really helpful to me. So I wonder if the real question for you is not about homeopathy and your T, but if knowing the science of depression or whatever issue you are bringing to therapy is what's important to you, perhaps you can frame your question in that way.
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Default May 20, 2019 at 09:44 AM
  #7
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Originally Posted by Myrto View Post
Therapy has no scientific basis either. It's all weird theories often cooked up by some guru who "magically" came up with them. Obviously homeopathy is bs too but when it comes to therapy and therapists, of course these people are going to believe in all kinds of nonsense. Their whole profession is a sham to begin with.
We have empirical evidence that therapy provides benefit over no treatment in properly controlled studies. The same cannot be said for homeopathic remedies.
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Default May 20, 2019 at 10:29 AM
  #8
heres the thing.. jsut because someone wants to learn about something doesnt say whether they can be a good therapist or not and whether they are trust worthy or not.

to me it says they want to be prepared in case they have clients that use or want that kind of therapy option.

lets put it another way.... think of something that interests you and you set out to learn about it, or build it or do it. maybe that's a sport. would that make you a good person to be friends with if someone liked and did the same things you did, would those friends of yours need to drop you as a friend because they dont do that sport? no you would be around your friends based on things you have in common.

therapists are the same way.. they have many different likes and dislikes and want to learn about things. they dont expect you to do the same things.

example my treatment provider is native american and has native american beliefs, traditions and such things. She has learned to also treat non native american clients and clients that have given up the native ways. She not only knows native american therapy techniques, she also knows DBT,CBT REBT and yes homeopathic ways.

being so diverse in her knowledge and willing to learn new treatments opens the door for treating more people with mental illness.

I cant tell you whether to talk with your treatment provider that you found their website and now know all the various things that she is doing and learning. only you can decide that.

what I can tell you is that my own treatment provider and I have and do discuss how diverse she is in treatment options and beliefs and how she is willing to learn new things either for own personal life or for her clients.
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Default May 20, 2019 at 11:15 AM
  #9
Much would depend on if the therapist is "woo" in session or not. I don't do "woo" in therapy. LOL! As long as my actual therapy was effective and useful to me, I could probably overlook the side interest. Now, if he started trying to sell it to me, we'd have a problem, but as long as it stays out of my own therapy and I'm satisfied with my own therapy, I could move past it I think.
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Default May 20, 2019 at 11:46 AM
  #10
I'm a very woo person- i think with any two people you won't have ideas that match on everything, I would bring it up though in session, because it is affecting you.

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Default May 20, 2019 at 11:47 AM
  #11
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Originally Posted by LabRat27 View Post
We have empirical evidence that therapy provides benefit over no treatment in properly controlled studies. The same cannot be said for homeopathic remedies.
I agree that there is empirical evidence that dates back for quite a few decades. Otherwise, why would insurance companies pay for therapy? Not because they want to be nice to people and pay millions of dollars for "experimental treatment." If the empirical evidence weren't there, then they could refuse to pay for therapy services.

Many people care whether their insurance providers cover therapy. Many businesses/organizations are able to recruit individuals based on their benefits package. Companies who don't have generous benefits will lose workers to those who provide less. People want their health benefits to include vaccinations and v i a g r a and therapy, among other things. If you don't want to vaccinate your child or get a b o n e r or go to therapy, then you don't have to. Everybody's got a right to their opinion about whether the service or medication or whatever is useful, but I'm satisfied with the determination of the institution that has to pay for only what's been determined to be effective, whose economic interest is opposed to paying for anything and everything.
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Default May 20, 2019 at 11:59 AM
  #12
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Originally Posted by Anne2.0 View Post
I agree that there is empirical evidence that dates back for quite a few decades. Otherwise, why would insurance companies pay for therapy? Not because they want to be nice to people and pay millions of dollars for "experimental treatment." If the empirical evidence weren't there, then they could refuse to pay for therapy services.

Many people care whether their insurance providers cover therapy. Many businesses/organizations are able to recruit individuals based on their benefits package. Companies who don't have generous benefits will lose workers to those who provide less. People want their health benefits to include vaccinations and v i a g r a and therapy, among other things. If you don't want to vaccinate your child or get a b o n e r or go to therapy, then you don't have to. Everybody's got a right to their opinion about whether the service or medication or whatever is useful, but I'm satisfied with the determination of the institution that has to pay for only what's been determined to be effective, whose economic interest is opposed to paying for anything and everything.
My insurance company got tired of paying for ER visits and paying for a ton of therapy is still cheaper
(I was just looking back through old EOBs and holy **** IOP was expensive!)
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Default May 20, 2019 at 12:25 PM
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My insurance company got tired of paying for ER visits and paying for a ton of therapy is still cheaper
(I was just looking back through old EOBs and holy **** IOP was expensive!)
And IOP is much cheaper than inpatient (at least at my facility)

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Default May 20, 2019 at 12:46 PM
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And IOP is much cheaper than inpatient (at least at my facility)
I think the duration made it a lot more expensive. It spanned several months (started at 4 days/week, was doing one or two by the end), so it was just short of $60k. I have no clue how much inpatient would equal the same cost (it's been a few years)

Edit: probably would have been cheaper to get my parents therapy before they had kids instead...
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Default May 20, 2019 at 03:33 PM
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Edit: probably would have been cheaper to get my parents therapy before they had kids instead...
ROTFL . . . thanks. True for me too.
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Default May 20, 2019 at 04:09 PM
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I think the duration made it a lot more expensive. It spanned several months (started at 4 days/week, was doing one or two by the end), so it was just short of $60k. I have no clue how much inpatient would equal the same cost (it's been a few years)

Edit: probably would have been cheaper to get my parents therapy before they had kids instead...
It would have been about 3 weeks impatient vs 5 months in Iop where I work.

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Default May 21, 2019 at 01:15 AM
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Default May 22, 2019 at 10:43 AM
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It always surprises me when people say that homeopathy is no more effective than placebo, so it is therefore worthless. I view the placebo effect as huge, and fantastic and that anything that helps us to harness the effect is very worthwhile. Have you read scientific papers on the placebo effect? I ask that because there are a lot of different bodies of knowledge and research about medicines, placebo, drug companies and how they suppress negative evidence, critiques of scientific approaches to evidence gathering. Your T may have been exposed to different bodies of knowledge than you have. The more I read, the more it makes me question any of our knowledge, and any scientific research. I have a degree and two masters in science.
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Default May 22, 2019 at 10:57 AM
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It always surprises me when people say that homeopathy is no more effective than placebo, so it is therefore worthless. I view the placebo effect as huge, and fantastic and that anything that helps us to harness the effect is very worthwhile.
My objections come down to what I consider to be a dishonest or erroneous attribution of cause-and-effect and the underlying mechanism behind the change or improvement. In my experience, practitioners are rarely honest about what we know and don't know, and I have rarely had a practitioner be transparent about the placebo effect. (My therapist was an exception to that, as was my GP, which is probably why I stuck with both of them.)

I, too, am all for harnessing the body's ability to heal itself. I just ask for honesty and transparency about what it is you're selling. Anything else borders on (or crosses over) into fraud, in my opinion.
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Default May 22, 2019 at 11:44 AM
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It always surprises me when people say that homeopathy is no more effective than placebo, so it is therefore worthless. I view the placebo effect as huge, and fantastic and that anything that helps us to harness the effect is very worthwhile.
I'm a social scientist with plenty of empirical research experience and understanding of the scientific method. We also know that a main effect of no difference doesn't mean there aren't specific populations that benefit from the "treatment" or who benefit under certain circumstances.

I tried a $6 vial of homeopathic allergy relief when I was about 26, after decades of suffering extreme allergies and taking prescription antihistamine medication, which made me feel addled and didn't always work that well. I'd had severe allergies since my tonsils were removed when I was 6. Given that homeopathy also has very few side effects, if any, and is cheap and available without a prescription, I figured I had little to lose by trying it. More than 20 years later, I still have no problems with allergies. I don't care what the mechanism is or what the science shows, it worked for me and it was far cheaper and better to my body and mind than what science had to offer.

I wouldn't use homeopathy to set a broken leg or as an alternative to truly necessary surgery, but I'll also say that a surgeon told me when I was pregnant that I would need to have my gallbladder out ASAP after childbirth. Baby is now 18 and I still have my gallbladder. In my view of the medical world, they are just way often wrong (and don't get me started on oncologists), know far less than they claim, and their treatments cost too much financially and are too hard on the body to justify their snooty beliefs that science is right about everything.
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