How Pseudoscience Has Invaded Mental Health Care
Markham Heid
Earlier this year, the White House announced a new national strategy to combat what it called “an unprecedented mental health crisis.”
Roughly 40% of American adults experience symptoms of anxiety or depression, the announcement said. An even greater percentage of high school students “report struggling with persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness.”
In a statement that accompanied the announcement, the White House highlighted the shortage of qualified mental health workers as an area of urgent need. “We must dramatically expand the supply, diversity, and cultural competency of our mental health and substance use disorder workforce — from psychiatrists to psychologists, peers to paraprofessionals,” it said.
The situation today is that many people who are struggling and need professional help can’t get it, and so they’re turning to unqualified sources — many of them online — for information and support. According to Investigating Clinical Psychology, a new book of expert essays edited by two academic psychologists, this situation has allowed various forms of “fringe science” — and downright pseudoscience — to infiltrate the mental health space.
Plenty of licensed therapists and counselors are themselves guilty of deploying unsubstantiated or defunct treatments.
“For the last several decades, the field of clinical psychology has really placed an emphasis on studying the effectiveness of treatments,” says Stephen Hupp, PhD, one of the editors of that book and a professor of psychology at Southern Illinois University in Edwardsville. “We know what works, and that makes it all the more concerning that people are getting other forms of treatment that either don’t have strong research support, or there’s research showing they aren’t effective or may even be harmful.”
Hupp, who is also the editor of Skeptical Inquirer: The Magazine for Science Reason, highlights crystals and other forms of “energy medicine” as examples of the kinds of unsupported remedies that…