Season 3 Ep 4: Therapy in the Shaky Landscape of Contemporary Neuroscience
As humans, we tend to like answers a lot more than we like questions. When we believe we have found answers, re-examining what we think of as truth is inherently destabilizing.
In a relatively young field like neuroscience, paradigm shifts, misconceptions, corrections, retractions, and foundational remodels are inevitable. We already have more questions than answers, and each answer spawns a thousand more questions.
That ever-unfolding feedback loop of curiosity, seeking, and finding is beautiful. However, it also causes problems when the paradigms we’ve adopted as true turn out to be mistaken.
Do we throw out therapeutic interventions that work because the neuroscientific explanation becomes irrelevant or outdated? Or do we twist the evidence to make it fit to keep using these interventions? The former seems wasteful, the latter disingenuous.
So what do we do?
It's a daunting task, but acknowledging the vastness of what we don’t know or understand with certainty is a crucial step. This honesty and humility might just be the key to becoming better therapists.
Listen to the full episode to hear:
The high stakes of re-examining accepted paradigms for ourselves and our clients
Why the therapy field’s longing for legitimacy makes us so prone to cling to neuroscientific concepts
Why even rock-solid science probably still won’t erase therapy’s “weird” reputation
Why it’s worth asking ourselves how we would explain what we do if we couldn’t rely on our favored neuroscientific explanation
How over-adherence to neuroscientific explanations is fueling the toxic intraprofessional culture of therapists
Why approaching neuroscientific concepts with humility and a grain of salt and maintaining a healthy skepticism with your clients isn’t going to kill your credibility
Learn more about Riva Stoudt:
Instagram: @atherapistcantsaythat
About Riva
Riva Stoudt is a therapist based in Portland, Oregon. When she's not working with patients, she likes to talk about all the things a therapist isn't "supposed" to talk about.
