Greenberg was the second speaker to come to Buffalo State College in the Spring 2004 Psychology Speaker Series. (Rodolfo Mendoza-Denton, Ph.D., came to speak in February.)

Greenberg's topic was “Expectancy and Common Factors: Creating Hope in Psychotherapy.”

The Speaker Series is currently in its fourth year. The purpose is to bring noted scholars from far and wide to speak on breakthroughs in psychology. Normally, the subjects of interest can be cross-referenced to another specialty like criminal justice or communications. Psychotherapy refers strictly to psychology.

Dr. Michael Zborowski , psychology professor at Buffalo State College, thinks very highly of Greenberg, and believes that he was selfish to bring him here, because of the lack of cross-reference, but reminded everyone that this was a Psychology Speaker Series. Greenberg has been idol of Zborowski's for many years.

Psychotherapy is based on well-known psychologist Sigmund Freud's theory of the subconscious. It uses the subconscious to fix a problem, like depression or alcoholism.

In 1950, Victor Raimy described psychotherapy as: “An undefined technique applied to unspecific problems with unpredictable outcomes for vigorous training is required.”

Greenberg touched on a couple of topics in his speech:

• efficacy of psychotherapy
• Dodo Bird Hypothesis
• common factors in every therapy model
• placebo effect
• hope

The efficacy of psychotherapy

• The meta-analyses, (uses various statistical methods to retrieve, select, and combine results from previous separate but related studies) show a large effect size, when using psychotherapy.
• The average person treated with psychotherapy is better off than 79 percent of untreated patients.
• Success rates for treated are about 69 percent compared to 31 percent of the control.

Dodo Bird Hypothesis

Saul Rosenzweig created The Dodo Bird Hypothesis based on Lewis Carol's 1865 book, Alice in Wonderland . In the book the dodo bird said: “Everybody has won and all must have prizes.”

“All methods of therapy when competently used are equally successful,” Rosenzweig said in 1936.

Greenberg agreed with him. He said: “Almost any psychotherapy when done competently will work in some way or another.

Common Factors in Every Therapy Model

• a therapeutic relationship is key (good relationship between therapist and patient)
• the confronting or facing of problems (unearthing the subconscious)
• provision of mastery experiences
• expectations

Placebo effect

A placebo effect, according to Greenberg, is a harmless, un-medicated preparation given as a medicine to a patient merely to humor him, or for a control in a medicated study.

Placebos are part of the very history of medical treatment. Some people have tried to remove placebos, but placebos have been proven to be very important.

Some observations of placebos are:

• with convincing presentation placebos can significantly reduce pain, be it tranquilizing or stimulating
• can alter physiology
• placebo morphine worked better than placebo aspirin (the patient believed more in morphine than aspirin)
• well-known brand names work when using placebos
• injections worked better than pills
• color was a factor – If the pill was blue, it had depressant effects, and if it was red it was more of a stimulant. Sleep came more quickly with blue pills, when compared to orange pills

Hope

Hope is extremely important in the effectiveness of psychotherapy. There are four factors that mobilize hope and positive expectations

• the creation of an emotionally confident relationship between patient and therapist
• a healing setting
• therapeutic rationale
• believable treatment

The therapist has to be focused on hope, and here are some aspects and guidelines they need to focus on:

• Psychotherapy has been normally focused on a negative aspect; the therapist has to find hope and something positive instead of focusing on the negative.
• empathetic listening and common sense
• provide treatment rationale
• -discuss between session tasks or “homework”
• display sincere enthusiasm and confidence
• research evidence
• clarify role expectations and misconceptions
• be aware of therapies that have worked and those that haven't worked

The main goal of psychotherapy is hope, and if the patient and therapist expect to do well, they will do well.

There is supposed to be a posted sign at the entrance to Hades. It says: “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here. (If you have already abandoned all hope, please disregard this notice.)” To succeed, psychotherapy must combat this message, because hope is all they need.

The third and last speaker is Thomas Szasz, M.D., on April 23 . His topic of expertise is “Psychiatry and Psychoanalysis in the Twentieth Century: Reflections of an 84-year-old participant and witness.”

Email: Shiele95@mail.buffalostate.edu