A distinguished psychoanalyst, who shall remain anonymous, once said to me: "The psychological schools are like sects." I have thought about this many times over the years as I have considered the reasons why the field of psychology does such a poor job of caring for the psychologically traumatized.
I will not spend much time justifying my previous claim. Almost anyone who has been traumatized and has ever tried to find what I can only vaguely call a "good therapist" will probably agree with the premise. Another issue is simply one of access and waiting lists, even in high-income countries.
The general - and correct - advice for anyone experiencing symptoms of psychological trauma, or who has survived a potentially traumatizing event, is to seek therapy. There is no debate about this.
However, this is easier said than done. Any licensed therapist should be able to provide some help. But not every therapist will be able to work specifically with trauma. I see several reasons for this, and the solution to one of them is in the headline.
For historical reasons, psychological schools of thought have become schools in the entrepreneurial sense. Maintaining systems of thought has, in my opinion, in most cases become more important than adapting to ideas that "just work" in the interest of the recipients of care (patients, clients).
Being part of a psychological school makes it necessary to analyze one's implicit conflict of interest between loyalty to one's affiliation to a school of thought and the interest of one's clients/patients.
Another point is that just because a technique or system of techniques can demonstrate that it does "something" does not mean that it is the best or most appropriate:
One example is CBT (cognitive-behavioral therapy), which ranks high in most meta-analyses as a treatment for psychological trauma (including PTSD). However, for complex trauma, especially childhood trauma, CBT plays only a supportive role. A stabilization-based approach combining suggestive hypnosis, EMDR, and other tools is more appropriate and effective in these cases.
Therefore, I believe that being enrolled in a certain school of psychology often automatically puts you at a disadvantage. And the reality is that most practitioners are trained in more than one school of thought. Most feel limited in their work and look for something else. This is one reason why the classical psychoanalyst who practices only pure psychoanalysis has become a rare species. Likewise, someone trained only in CBT is inevitably very limited in what they can accomplish.
A mix of tools is usually better. And this is true for psychological trauma, where a variety of emotional aspects need to be addressed. So why not get started right away with the right mix of tools for the job?
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