Clinical psychologist and clinical professor of psychiatry at UCSF. Author of the 2010 meta-analysis that established psychodynamic therapy as an evidence-based treatment, and a persistent critic of how the phrase "evidence-based therapy" is used.
We collected these quotes from things they published elsewhere, and every quote links to where it was said. They have no account here and have not endorsed this site. Quotes are word for word; the short line under each one is our own restatement, not their wording. Their own site. Is this you? Claim it or ask us to remove it. Or tell us what is wrong here.
12 of Jonathan Shedler's claims fit 5 mental models. Most often: What counts as evidence, Early templates, The therapeutic alliance.
A label like evidence-based can describe what was studied rather than what works. Who was compared with what, and how long the treatment ran, decide what a trial can show.
Their wordsNo research ever suggested that manualized CBT was more effective than psychodynamic therapy. It was just more often researched. There is a world of difference between saying a treatment is less often researched and saying it has been scientifically discredited.
Their wordsThe American Psychological Association (APA) just issued guidelines for treating trauma. Patients and therapists would be wise to ignore them.
Their wordsIt takes more than 20 sessions, or about six months of weekly therapy, before 50 percent of patients show meaningful improvement. It takes more than 40 sessions for 75 percent of patients to show meaningful improvement.
Their wordsWhen patients don't get the help they need, they don't come away thinking, I didn't get good treatment. They come away thinking, I am too broken to be helped. They leave more hopeless and demoralized than when they came. That is harm.
Their wordsBut we can measure psychological health by how closely a person approximates this hypothetical ideal.
What a child learned about being seen, comforted or let down becomes the template adults run on: in relationships, in expectations, even in addiction.
Their wordsThis expectation is a vestige of early childhood and the small child's experience of their parents as omnipotent-able to provide whatever is needed to make everything all better.
Mental modelThe pain beneath the symptom
Their wordsIt is the unconscious conviction that one is entitled to special compensation in proportion to suffering and victimhood.
Their wordsThe fantasy that suffering is a claim ticket becomes a powerful resistance to psychological change.
Therapy needs two people who can work together. Whether the alliance causes good outcomes or merely reveals a patient who could form one is an open question.
Their wordsPsychotherapy cannot help if the participants cannot work together.
Their wordsIt is true that a good therapeutic alliance predicts good outcome. But anyone can develop an alliance with someone who can already form good relationships. Measures of the therapeutic alliance may simply be a proxy for the patient's preexisting capacity for healthy relationships.
Mental modelEmpathy and validation
Their wordsThe phrase "your feelings are valid" does not invite curiosity or deeper self-understanding, which is the point of psychotherapy. It is the mirror image of "stop whining and get a grip." One sounds warm and one sounds harsh, but neither deepens self-awareness.
Feeling with someone is not the same as telling them their feelings are valid. Empathy can be chosen, and a therapist who only validates stops being a companion.
Mental modelThe therapeutic alliance
Their wordsThe phrase "your feelings are valid" does not invite curiosity or deeper self-understanding, which is the point of psychotherapy. It is the mirror image of "stop whining and get a grip." One sounds warm and one sounds harsh, but neither deepens self-awareness.
The behaviour on the surface is often the visible part of something else: anger over grief, resentment over hurt, addiction over pain. Treating only the surface treats an effect.
Mental modelEarly templates
Their wordsIt is the unconscious conviction that one is entitled to special compensation in proportion to suffering and victimhood.