Neuropsychotherapist Magazine

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jmiah717

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Anyone know anything about this e-magazine? They seem to have a pretty big following on Facebook. I was wondering what people's thoughts are about this and if they think the science is sound. Seems like they link to a lot of big university studies and summarize some interesting research. Thoughts?

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I have never heard of it. As far as I know, a neuropsychotherapist is not a real thing. Sounds like a "neurochiropractor." Something made up to trick consumers into thinking something is more scientific than it really is.
 
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I have never heard of it. As far as I know, a neuropsychotherapist is not a real thing. Sounds like a "neurochiropractor." Something made up to trick consumers into thinking something is more scientific than it really is.

Well, I hadn't heard of it either and was skeptical just the same. But some of the studies they linked seemed legit and really were interesting. It didn't seem like anything over the top but my skepticism led me to ask the question.
 
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Neuropsychs are doing less and less diagnosis, and more strength/weakness work, and that trend will only increase. Soon enough it will all be M.D led.
 
Seems like they attempt to explain studies in a readable, layperson manner. They cite the actual studies at the bottom of each article. I don't know about their title, but maybe an interesting place to find articles and then seek out the specific study later on PubMed.

Here's one:

http://www.neuropsychotherapist.com...ions-of-social-thoughts-and-autism-diagnosis/

It's an interesting study, but the article doesn't offer any critique or placement of the study in a bigger context. I hope the audience is the kind that would look up the actual paper and be skeptical of easily misconstrued phrases like "predict autism diagnoses with 97 percent accuracy."

Having skimmed a few other pieces this looks like a popular science magazine focused on psychology and neuroscience, but edited to speak mainly to mental health professionals who, presumably, don't otherwise get much exposure to related content.
 
It's an interesting study, but the article doesn't offer any critique or placement of the study in a bigger context. I hope the audience is the kind that would look up the actual paper and be skeptical of easily misconstrued phrases like "predict autism diagnoses with 97 percent accuracy."

Having skimmed a few other pieces this looks like a popular science magazine focused on psychology and neuroscience, but edited to speak mainly to mental health professionals who, presumably, don't otherwise get much exposure to related content.
The journal that accepted it publishes 50% of work sent in, and it was higher few years ago.
 
The journal that accepted it publishes 50% of work sent in, and it was higher few years ago.

What's your point? Popular science and general audience magazines cover pieces from lower impact factor journals. Happens all the time, actually.

And, a lot of stuff makes it into PLOS ONE. In this case, it looks like the authors didn't want to wait around to do the "Study 2" part before publishing.
 
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It's an interesting study, but the article doesn't offer any critique or placement of the study in a bigger context. I hope the audience is the kind that would look up the actual paper and be skeptical of easily misconstrued phrases like "predict autism diagnoses with 97 percent accuracy."

Having skimmed a few other pieces this looks like a popular science magazine focused on psychology and neuroscience, but edited to speak mainly to mental health professionals who, presumably, don't otherwise get much exposure to related content.

I think you're right. I think it's pop psychology but may offer some interesting studies to check out later.


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Furthermore, I work in a large urban setting. I'm not sure what the trailer park neuropsych's are saying.
Trailer park neuropsych....a southern bluegrass band to play INS next year? Someone needs to make this happen! :laugh:

I'm in my ivory tower, so I'm not sure what happens outside of these walls. /sarcasm
 
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Trailer park neuropsych....a southern bluegrass band to play INS next year? Someone needs to make this happen! :laugh:

I'm in my ivory tower, so I'm not sure what happens outside of these walls. /sarcasm
Alright, which of you neuro guys has your office here?
trailerpark.jpg
 
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Don't now steal the idea, guys.
 
Don't now steal the idea, guys.
Don't worry, we'll give you credit for that, as well as for working way outside of your scope of practice and trolling as a form of deflection when people don't respond positively to your BS.
 
Don't worry, we'll give you credit for that, as well as for working way outside of your scope of practice and trolling as a form of deflection when people don't respond positively to your BS.
Anger will not serve you well in this profession.
 
Not sure if anyone is invested in the thread anymore, if it's too old, etc., but I thought I'd add that I know a "neuropsychotherapist" in my area. She's pretty decent too... but, totally agree that it's a misleading term. It apparently means psychotherapy provided that is influenced by neuroscience, something geared towards masters level therapists (LMFT, LPC, LCSW, etc.) to incorporate neuro work in their talk therapy approach, usually heavily CBT (like most things these days). She said that she's one of 2 that have been trained in the whole USA (I know this is silly), she flew to New Zealand for the training, likely a "working vacation" type of situation. IMO it's improved her therapy. At any rate, just thought I'd throw that out there.
 
Sounds like what EMDR did to make itself look more "legit." Just add a bunch of neuro sounding words to something that already worked, charge people a butt load of money to get "trained" in it, and cognitive dissonance does the rest.
 
Sounds like what EMDR did to make itself look more "legit." Just add a bunch of neuro sounding words to something that already worked, charge people a butt load of money to get "trained" in it, and cognitive dissonance does the rest.

Agreed. It's got 'bandwagon' written all over it. It's catch-22 though, because without these models, many therapists wouldn't know what the hell to do and it does improve their practice. So it's definitely not all bad.
 
Agreed. It's got 'bandwagon' written all over it. It's catch-22 though, because without these models, many therapists wouldn't know what the hell to do and it does improve their practice. So it's definitely not all bad.

Why would therapists not know what to do without things like EMDR and "neurotherapy"? We have many well-established, non-snakeoil sounding, treatments already. Additionally, how do we know that it is improving their practice? Are adequate RCT's being done by these individuals in their PP?
 
because without these models, many therapists wouldn't know what the hell to do and it does improve their practice.

Huh?

And, You got any actual evidence of that?
 
Are adequate RCT's being done by these individuals in their PP?

What do you mean by RCT's? Also, looking back at my post, I guess I'm exaggerating a bit. It's not that they have NO idea what to do without the specialization models such as EMDR, neuropsychotherapy, etc., but they seem to feel a lot more comfortable within them.

Re: "how do we know that it is improving their practice?" I've noticed that they are more likely to use pre and post assessment when it's included within a model, and they feel accountability to the fidelity of the model.
 
By RCT, I mean a randomized control trial, I was being a bit cheeky. As far as using pre and post assessment and feeling accountability to the model, it's kind of irrelevant if the model has no real validity. You can show fidelity to meaningless things. I guess my definition of improvement of practice would be better outcomes for patients, measures in adequate and meaningful ways. Otherwise, we're just observing cognitive dissonance at work.
 
Huh?

And, You got any actual evidence of that?

Not research evidence, no. I'm speaking of what I see in practice in my area, and what is discussed at supervision meetings.
 
By RCT, I mean a randomized control trial

Gotcha

As far as using pre and post assessment and feeling accountability to the model, it's kind of irrelevant if the model has no real validity. You can show fidelity to meaningless things.

Agreed, and I don't know enough about it to truly speak to it. I'd guess it's somewhere in between.

I guess my definition of improvement of practice would be better outcomes for patients, measures in adequate and meaningful ways. Otherwise, we're just observing cognitive dissonance at work.

She reports that she has better outcomes with her patients. I can't discuss her measures because I don't know them. All I'd honestly be able to say is that it's allowed her to incorporate neuro in her approaches in PP, and that she's used it a lot to educate her clients about the escalation/de-escalation mechanisms in stress and anxiety situations, etc., and that she's found that beneficial and so have they. This was essentially the content of my conversation with her.
 
Fair, it's just that we really don't know if it's doing anything meaningful aside from making her feel more competent/confident. Additionally, we don't know if it's really just the "neuro placebo" effect in action, rather than any meaningful effect of a new or adjunctive treatment approach. These are the mechanisms that allow snakeoil to prosper, cognitive dissonance (e.g., I paid a lot for something, so I have to convince myself that it's working) and the fact that most people respond favorably to any kind of "treatment," at least in the short-term. I'm all for new treatments, I just prefer that they work and have a solid empirical base, especially when they cost a lot of money to train in.
 
Fair, it's just that we really don't know if it's doing anything meaningful aside from making her feel more competent/confident. Additionally, we don't know if it's really just the "neuro placebo" effect in action, rather than any meaningful effect of a new or adjunctive treatment approach. These are the mechanisms that allow snakeoil to prosper, cognitive dissonance (e.g., I paid a lot for something, so I have to convince myself that it's working) and the fact that most people respond favorably to any kind of "treatment," at least in the short-term. I'm all for new treatments, I just prefer that they work and have a solid empirical base, especially when they cost a lot of money to train in.

You've newly defined cognitive dissonance as relating to expensive 'bandwagon' treatments, which is pretty funny! I know what you mean though. The self-fulfilling prophecy concept... which I'm sure is heavily at play, since she went to New Zealand to get it ;) I'd also guess that there definitely is an aspect of the 'neuro placebo' effect going on, and I get what you're saying about the common factors stuff, but you can't beat the neuro understanding of the alarm mechanisms related to stress/anxiety for treating that. In at least that aspect, I'd say it's beyond just placebo, though that may also be at play.

I'm not ready to get the training, not only am I suspicious of 'the next new thing,' but anything training outside of the country just has 'sketchy' written all over it.
 
Oh, cognitive dissonance has always applied to such situations, nothing new here at all. Also, common factors are there, but that wasn't what I was referring to. The effect of just seeing a doctor/professional, or having a procedure done, leads to patient reports of improved function. Look up sham surgery for a particularly interesting example. The more invasive a procedure that a patient thinks was done, the better they report feeling, even when nothing was actually done.
 
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