Placebo Effect Is Good in Psychotherapy

If you ae beginning counseling, you should understand how you are likely to evaluate the early stages of therapy. Psychotherapy is highly prone to an expectancy (placebo) effect. That is, once you have decided to take the plunge into therapy, you will look to justify your efforts by finding areas of improvement in your condition. You do not want to see yourself wasting time, effort, and money; you want to convince yourself that you are doing the right things. These tendencies can make you overestimate real improvement in the early stages of treatment. This tendency to overestimate how much better you are in the early stages of therapy has been verified in research studies. Clients’ subjective estimates of improvement after only a few sessions are higher than improvement as measured by formal diagnostic tests. This placebo effect is especially true for those who believe they should and will get better overnight, even though the reality is it took decades to develop their dysfunctions. But that’s OK! Always look for that half-full, not half-empty, glass because if you don’t believe your therapy will work, and is working, it probably won’t.