Evaluating the talking cure: Cognitive behaviour therapy

It would seem that a disorder as complex as a mental illness would require equally complex solutions. “Talking cures,” known today as psychotherapies, were lauded as unscientific for a very long time. Today, cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) is a psychotherapeutic technique that has shown considerable success in improving the prognosis for many mental illnesses using the scientific method. It is considered a panacea by some for mental illness amidst the zeitgeist of skepticism for pharmacology. This article explores the philosophical foundations of CBT and explains how a technique once considered unscientific is now the gold-standard in mental illness treatment. A randomized controlled trial (RCT) will also be discussed to examine its validity on psychotherapy and determine whether efficiency studies may be more suitable to adequately compare psychotherapies