Therapy Roundtable: Challenging Mental Health Orthodoxy and The Evidence Based Paradigm

Tired of mental health podcasts that just tell you to breathe deeply? Discover + Heal + Grow from Taproot Therapy Collective brings you honest, sometimes irreverent conversations about the real challenges in psychology and therapy today.

In this episode, Joel Blackstock, James Waites, Alice Hawley, and Hailey critique evidence-based practice and the research status quo in psychology. They explore why academic publishing paywalls limit access to knowledge, how profit motives influence research, and why the biomedical model falls short in understanding human consciousness.

The therapists examine why CBT has dominated the field despite its limitations, why qualitative research deserves more respect, and how clinical wisdom often outpaces published research. They advocate for a psychology that values both scientific rigor and the subjective experience of individuals, making space for newer modalities like brain spotting, EMDR, and somatic approaches.

Whether you're a mental health professional questioning the orthodoxy or someone interested in the deeper workings of therapy, this episode offers a refreshingly authentic critique of how psychological knowledge is created, shared, and applied.

 

1. The Future of Therapy: Navigating the Tensions of Our Time - Published January 2025
   • This article examines the growing mismatch between hyper-specialized, manualized approaches favored by clinical research and the actual needs of patients. It critiques the "cognitive revolution" in psychology, which despite promising a more humanistic alternative to behaviorism, has perpetuated many mechanistic assumptions Gettherapybirmingham.
2. Evidence Based Practice is Bul$*%!@ , Let's Fix It! - Published February 2025
   • A provocative critique of evidence-based practice, especially in trauma treatment. The author challenges the dominance of CBT and medication-based approaches, arguing they often fail to address the root causes of trauma Gettherapybirmingham.
3. When Evidence Based Practice Goes Wrong - Published October 2024
   • This piece discusses how commercial interests can negatively influence psychiatric research and practice, compromising scientific integrity and patient welfare Gettherapybirmingham.
4. Evidence Based Practice and Research Psychology Archives
   • The archive section of their blog dedicated to evidence-based practice, which explores the scientific foundations of mental health treatment thr