it would probably be more fun to be waterboarded
Over the last decade, Sweden, like most Western countries, embraced the call for “evidence-based practice.” Socialstyrelsen, the country’s National Board of Health and Welfare, developed and disseminated a set of guidelines (“riktlinger”) for mental health practice. Topping the list of methods was, not surprisingly, cognitive-behavioral therapy.
The Swedish State took the list seriously, restricting payment for training of clinicians and treatment of clients to cognitive behavioral methods. In the last three years, a billion Swedish crowns were spent on training clinicians in CBT. Another billion was spent on providing CBT to people with diagnoses of depression and anxiety. No funding was provided for training or treatment in other methods...
Back in May 2012, I wrote about Sweden’s massive investment in cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). The idea was simple: address rising rates of disability due to mental illness by training clinicians in CBT. At the time, a mere two billion Swedish crowns had been spent.
Now, several years and nearly 7 billion Crowns later, the NAO audited the program. Briefly, it found:
The widespread adoption of the method had no effect whatsoever on the outcome of people disabled by depression and anxiety;
A significant number of people who were not disabled at the time they were treated with CBT became disabled thereby increasing the amount of time they spent on disability; and
Nearly a quarter of people treated with CBT dropped out.
https://www.scottdmiller.com/swedish-national-audit-office-concludes-when-all-you-have-is-cbt-mental-health-suffers/
