The need to go to therapy for the treatment of mental health problems has, fortunately, ceased to be a taboo among the population. In fact, the improvement of psychological care is an issue that has become part of the agendas of governments and institutions. However, the verifiable deficiencies in this area within the public health systems and the economic effort involved in accessing the relevant treatments can lead patients to opt for therapies that escape administrative regulation.
According to the World Medical Association, pseudotherapies are techniques or procedures whose presumed purpose is to alleviate the symptoms of a health problem, but which lack any type of scientific endorsement. These practices not only do not have a specific therapeutic objective, but can cause risks and harm to those who submit to them.
Transformational coaching or bioenergetic therapy have been classified as pseudo-therapies by the Ministry of Health, while others such as psychoanalysis or Gestalt therapy are in the process of being evaluated. In any case, these therapies are treatments given from non-accredited centers for the assistance of both mental health problems and serious illnesses such as cancer. Those in charge of promulgating its supposed benefits are pseudotherapists, outside the control of professional associations, who tend to use informal networks to attract vulnerable or desperate patients.
People who adhere to this type of practice have not been able to verify the effectiveness of the treatment. The subjectivity of its promoters and the use of the vulnerable situation of patients with mental disorders or any other health problem make pseudotherapies anything goes, in which ambiguous or impossible promises are offered, from reducing insomnia to strengthen the immune system.
The more serious the ailment that the patient wishes to treat, the greater the vulnerability and the risk that the remedy will be worse than the disease. Pseudotherapies can delve into mental health disorders in people who, without proper psychological care, may even face death, or create trauma or mental health problems in healthy people who did not previously suffer.
Submitting to pseudotherapies for mere profit can also lead to serious economic losses for your patients. Many times patients are reluctant to set aside these techniques because of the time and money invested, which reduces their possibilities when it comes to accessing truly effective treatments and covered by the public health system. This in the best of cases, since the manipulation of the promoters could also bring them self-esteem problems, identity crises or the deterioration of their personal relationships and, consequently, the lack of support to help them put an end to the false treatment. .
