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Robyn M. Dawes

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House of Cards Paperback – September 1, 1996

by Robyn Dawes (Author)

4.4 45 ratings

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Robin Dawes spares no one in this powerful critique of modern psychotherapeutic practice. As Dawes points out, we have all been swayed by the "pop psych" view of the world--believing, for example, that self-esteem is an essential precursor to being a productive human being, that events in one's childhood affect one's fate as an adult, and that "you have to love yourself before you can love another."

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About the Author

Robyn Mason Dawes was a psychologist who specialized in the field of human judgment. His research interests included human irrationality, human cooperation, intuitive expertise, and the United States AIDS policy.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Free Press; 1st edition (September 1, 1996)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 352 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0684830914
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0684830919
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.15 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 0.9 x 9 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #1,565,548 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #579 in Popular Psychology History
- #2,939 in Popular Psychology Psychotherapy
- #36,702 in Mental Health (Books)

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4.4 45 ratings

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Julie Mckinley
Defining "Psychology" (and Diagnoses) Down
Reviewed in the United States on January 20, 2006
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Robin Dawes is a genius and one of the most original thinkers in any field. His work was a primary source for my own Ph.D. dissertation. Unfortunately, clinical psychology has morphed into a hodgepodge of political leftism and Oprah-style "feelings" that has barely any resemblance to science. Compounding all of this is the competition for money as (far too many) psych grads look for a way to earn a living. Completely normal human responses to everyday living are defined as pathological and needing "professional intervention." Meanwhile, criminal and evil behavior is also considered for "therapy" when, in fact, jail is the only reasonable "treatment" needed. Finally, political correctness pervades the whole, especially the care of children. So instead of getting the pot-smoking 30-year-old mother of 5 children by 5 different men to see that her behavior is hurting her kids, the kids are given labels (ADHD, ODD, Bipolar, etc.) and drugs, including antipsychotics, as early as age 2 years. Meanwhile, the therapy train steams right along...

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28 people found this helpful

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Memphis Reviewer
Behavior Analyst
Reviewed in the United States on October 25, 2008
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Dawes does a wonderful job of critically analyzing psychology. Even in the field of behavior analysis where research support and data are emphatically emphasized during the design and implementation of treatment, people (including behavior analysts) get lazy. Reading and keeping up with the latest techniques and research is hard work in any professional field and earning Continuing Education Units does not guarantee you are engaging in "best practice".

I dated a medical doctor and was surprised to hear that many of her colleagues had trouble learning and keeping up with the latest and best techniques once they left their university, research hospital or competitive hospital that pushed for empirical improvement. Learning and improvement doesn't stop with a MD or Ph.D. ;-)

Jason

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Baraniecki Mark Stuart
Psychologists can't be "expert" witnesses
Reviewed in the United States on January 10, 2010
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Robyn Dawes excellent book "House of Cards". He's a clinical psychologist, head of the department of social and decision sciences at Carnegie Mellon University and was motivated to write the book by the completely unjustifiable presence of psychologists as "expert" witnesses in criminal trials. Amazingly, the only statements that seem to be left with statistical validity are 1) The best predictors of future behaviour are past behaviour and performance on carefully standardized tests..... 2) There is good evidence that changing our behaviour will change our internal state and feelings. (Just do it! )

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Ralph Fretz
excellent book
Reviewed in the United States on February 14, 2011
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Robyn Dawe's book is an insightful piece of work that should be in a psychotherapist's library. The book covers a number of important topics. While I did not agree with all of Dr. Dawe's assertions, his comments about psychological tests and psychotherapy were thought-provoking. It is unfortunate that Dr. Dawes recently passed away, as we have lost a great mind.

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drbrainfit
Accurate in some respects, out of date in some respects
Reviewed in the United States on December 3, 2018
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House of Cards contains much valuable information, but is now out of date with respect to important issues regarding psychotherapy.

The author, Dr. Dawes, cited two reviews and one trial to ardently contend that professional psychotherapists are no more helpful than untrained, non-professional counselors.

The review by Hattie (1984, Psychological Bulletin 95:534-541) was badly flawed by including studies which did not clearly distinguish between professional and non-professional therapists. As just one example, this review includes a study in which the “professional” therapists were students who had not completed their training.

The review by Berman (1985, Psychological Bulletin 98:401-407) falls far short of the standards for modern reviews and meta-analyses. First, the review did not clearly state how professional and non-professional therapists were defined. The average age of the professional therapists was only 31.8 years, meaning that on average these therapists did not have extensive experience. For example, if a person proceeded directly from high school through college, medical school and adult psychiatry residency, the person would complete training at the age of 30. Thus at the age of 31.8 years the person would have only two years of post-residency experience, whereas 10 years is needed to truly become expert. Second, the included studies were extracted from the review by Hattie. There was not an extensive search of the literature to identify other studies. Third, the review did not contain a funnel plot or other method to determine if relevant studies may not have been published. Fourth, the review did not state the total number of patients treated in the included studies. Nor did the review adequately discuss pertinent subsets of patients. Fifth, the review did not adequately discuss the quality of the included studies across a range of criteria. The review did not use a standardized measure of quality to eliminate poor-quality studies or to rate the quality of the included studies. Sixth, the review did not specify how ill the patients were on average. Given ethical considerations, it is likely that the included studies did not involve seriously ill patients. It would have been unethical to have allowed untrained persons to treat gravely or even moderately ill patients. Seventh, the review did not include a heterogeneity statistic. A heterogeneity statistic would allow the reader to assess whether the included studies had consistent enough results to make the results believable.

Dr. Dawes discussed at length one trial and endorsed it as proving that professional therapists are no more helpful than non-professionals. (Strupp, 1979; Archives of General Psychiatry 36:1125-1136) This involved patients being treated by trained therapists versus college professors not trained as therapists. This study is seriously flawed. First, the patients were all male students at Vanderbilt, that is, persons with significantly above average intellectual abilities. The patients had depression or anxiety of “mild” degree. The patients did not have serious mental illnesses. Such persons might be expected to improve spontaneously without treatment. Indeed, an included group of male Vanderbilt students who were not treated at all did improve significantly. Second, specific diagnoses were not made. The patients were designated by certain scores on the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, which is not a diagnostic instrument. Third, the patients were not blind to treatment assignment. Fourth, although various rating instruments were used, the study did not discuss the extent to which the instruments were validated. Fifth, the patients assigned to the trained therapists had more serious symptoms than did the patients assigned to the non-professionals. Sixth, it was not specified whether the trained therapists used specific treatment protocols or followed a manual such as a modern expert therapist would do. Given that the study was conducted in the 1970s, it is highly unlikely that the trained therapists followed an empirically validated manual. Seventh, the numbers were small with only 16 patients being assigned to the trained therapists and 15 to the non-professionals.

House of Cards was published in 1994. Since that time many teams of bright, sincere, industrious researchers have demonstrated that various forms of structured therapy can significantly help patients improve their lives. See, e.g., Barth 2013; PLOS Medicine 10:e1001454. For some conditions, such as major depression, panic disorder and obsessive compulsive disorder, a combination of medication and therapy is better than either alone. (Cuijpers 2014; World Psychiatry 13:56-67)

That being said, unfortunately it seems that in the community very few therapists rely on manualized protocols when providing therapy. (Manuals are guides, not rigid rulebooks. An excellent therapist is a warm, caring person who works systematically according to a scientifically proven model.) Therapists often claim that they are “eclectic” and pick and choose the best techniques from various schools of therapy. However, there is no evidence that such eclectic approaches work. Therapists claim that they rely on their own experience, but as Dr. Dawes forcefully argued, personal experience is no substitute for scientific evidence. If you had cancer and consulted an oncologist, would you want her to prescribe chemotherapy according to her personal experience, which she very likely has not systematically and statistically studied, or according to the best scientific evidence?

If you plan to see a psychotherapist you might ask some questions to help you determine how likely it is that the therapist will provide truly evidence-based treatment.

What form of therapy do you plan to provide?
What is the evidence in favor of that form of therapy?
What are the steps of the therapy? [Can the therapist fluently and extemporaneously state at least several steps of the form of therapy?]
What skills will you try to help me learn? [Can the therapist fluently and extemporaneously state at least a few skills she plans to teach?]
Will you follow a manual?
Will you give me a workbook?

The final three words of the book are, “Just do it.” It is true that to change our brains and to change our lives we ultimately have to take action. However, it is not so simple as “Just do it.” If it were, people would “do it” and not struggle so much with their mental health. A skilled therapist who is experienced in following a scientifically validated manual can do a lot to help patients develop psychological skills that can help the patients take life-building actions.

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18 people found this helpful

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Darko Tadic
Very good and useful
Reviewed in the United States on June 13, 2013
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Very good and clever thinking about pseudopsychology and self help industry madness today. Recommended! Esspecialy for people looking for real help.

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Penny Essex
A much needed book in the realm of psychotherapies
Reviewed in Canada on February 3, 2013
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Unlike what Mike Finn asserts, Dawes never states that Cognitive therapy isn't effective. What he rather says is that CT is effective to a certain extent, with some specific conditions, which is the inescapable fact. Actually, what Dawes says (p. 54) when he reviews the famous Smith and Glass meta-analysis regarding the effectiveness of psychotherapy is quite the opposite of many comments posted here: « As I later told the Oregon Psychological Association, I had become a “reformed sinner” — someone who had originally been ready to ascribe the apparent effectiveness of psychotherapy to methodological flaws in the studies supporting it but who had now become a “true believer” ». So, Dawes does believe in the effectiveness of psychotherapy, but rather debunk numerous deep-rooted myths regarding this practice in his book.

The one star rating Finn gives to the book under these conditions is a good example of the attitude that imbues the psychology industry: it is the realm of believers rather than people driven by a scientific mind. That is the precise target of Dawes' criticism: the practices and ways of doing things in psychology aren't those of a scientific discipline.

Psychotherapies do give results, but nobody knows why. The active ingredient of psychotherapy is still unknown, and yet the profession behaves like it knows for sure and can teach how to become an effective psychotherapist to students in psychology. This is a lie.

Psychologists, psychiatrists and all related professions in psychology present themselves to society as specialists of the human behaviour, the kind of people who have the knowledge about what makes individuals behave the way they do, but this is another lie. Psychologists and psychiatrists don't know better than anybody else the cause of people's actions and shouldn't be socially promoted as such experts.

The growth of psychology in our societies is unjustified, owing to the absence of evidence supporting the special knowledge psychologists and psychiatrists claim to have. Today they are everywhere, in the hiring processes of major companies, in court, in schools, in hospitals, in the government apparatus and what better society have they contributed to create? On the opposite, the number of myths they helped propagating are countless: from the frailty of children and women confronted to tragical events to the false memories they can implant in the mind of people in the setting of the psychotherapy.

Under these conditions, Dawes' book is a must and has to be praised.

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frank edward de smet
Five Stars
Reviewed in Canada on May 22, 2016
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Very important book

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