Jonathan Shedler
Clinical psychologist and clinical professor of psychiatry at UCSF. His 2010 meta-analysis established psychodynamic therapy as an evidence-based treatment; he has argued ever since that "evidence-based therapy" is used as a marketing term.
Jonathan Shedler did not write this page. What is this?
It collects the places they publish and what they have said there, each linked to the source. They have no account here. Is this you? Claim it, correct it, or ask us to remove it from ppll.
Where they publish
jonathanshedler.comSite The front door: his practice, and PDFs of his published papers.
His own site — the practice, the consultation work, and free PDFs of the papers the arguments rest on, including the 2010 efficacy meta-analysis and the 2018 "Where is the evidence for evidence-based therapy?".
Link verified 3 Sept 2026.
Psychologically MindedBlog His Psychology Today blog, 2013-2025. Where the evidence-based-therapy argument was first made in public.
Posts from 2013 to 2025, each carrying his byline: the trauma-guidelines piece, "Evidence-Based Therapy: Science or Marketing?", and the dose-response numbers that recur in everything he has written since.
Link verified 3 Sept 2026.
Jonathan ShedlerNewsletter Where the current writing is: an essay most Mondays on what psychotherapy is and is not.
Weekly essays on how skilled therapists actually work — what they listen for, why "your feelings are valid" is not therapy, and what happens when institutions call compromised care best practice.
Open jonathanshedler.substack.com
Recent
- When the Therapy Relationship Is the Problem 31 Aug 2026
- Why “Just Talking” Helps 24 Aug 2026
- What Skilled Psychotherapists Sound Like 17 Aug 2026
Show 17 more
- Real Psychotherapists Don’t Act Like Therapists on the Internet 10 Aug 2026
- Why We Act Like Some of Our Thoughts Aren’t Ours 3 Aug 2026
- When Compromised Care Becomes “Best Practice” 27 Jul 2026
- How Skilled Psychotherapists Really Listen 20 Jul 2026
- This Is Talk Therapy: What Psychotherapy Is and How It Works 13 Jul 2026
- When Psychotherapy Works, Then What? 6 Jul 2026
- Psychological Illiteracy Begins in Psychology 101 29 Jun 2026
- Skilled Therapists Don’t Say “Your Feelings Are Valid” 22 Jun 2026
- The Patient Who Can’t Close the Door 15 Jun 2026
- Podcast: What Makes Psychotherapy Meaningful? 8 Jun 2026
- What I’d Teach Every Grad Student on Day One 1 Jun 2026
- Six Reasons People Repeat Painful Experiences 25 May 2026
- Therapist Ethics Is Not About Following Rules 18 May 2026
- Eavesdropping on a Psychotherapy Session 11 May 2026
- Therapy Influencers Sell Illusion, Not Insight 4 May 2026
- When Therapists Mistake Caretaking for Empathy 27 Apr 2026
- What Is Therapy For? 20 Apr 2026
Link verified 3 Sept 2026. Recent items update automatically from the channel.
Beliefs
What they believeKorrents 6 beliefs — each backed by an exact quote.
Each is a — compiled by korrents.com, not by them: the one-line wordings are korrents', the quotes are theirs.
Recent
When institutions can only offer compromised care they end up calling it best practice, and the patients who do not get better conclude that they themselves are beyond help.
When patients don't get the help they need, they don't come away thinking, I didn't get good treatment. They come away thinking, I am too broken to be helped. They leave more hopeless and demoralized than when they came. That is harm.
When Compromised Care Becomes "Best Practice" Said 27 Jul 2026
Telling a patient "your feelings are valid" is not therapy: it is the mirror image of "get a grip", and it makes the therapist a judge of feelings instead of a companion in them.
The phrase "your feelings are valid" does not invite curiosity or deeper self-understanding, which is the point of psychotherapy. It is the mirror image of "stop whining and get a grip." One sounds warm and one sounds harsh, but neither deepens self-awareness.
Skilled Therapists Don't Say "Your Feelings Are Valid" Said 22 Jun 2026
The APA's trauma treatment guidelines should be ignored, because they rest only on trials of therapies too brief to have worked.
The American Psychological Association (APA) just issued guidelines for treating trauma. Patients and therapists would be wise to ignore them.
Selling Bad Therapy to Trauma Victims Said 19 Nov 2017
Show 3 more
Psychotherapy follows a dose-response curve: it takes more than 20 sessions before half of patients meaningfully improve, and more than 40 before three quarters do.
It takes more than 20 sessions, or about six months of weekly therapy, before 50 percent of patients show meaningful improvement. It takes more than 40 sessions for 75 percent of patients to show meaningful improvement.
Selling Bad Therapy to Trauma Victims Said 19 Nov 2017
"Evidence-based therapy" is a branding term rather than a scientific one, and in practice it is a code word for "not psychodynamic".
The term "evidence-based therapy" is also, de facto, a code word for "not psychodynamic."
Evidence-Based Therapy: Science or Marketing? Said 2 Oct 2013
No research ever showed manualized CBT to be more effective than psychodynamic therapy; it was only studied more often.
No research ever suggested that manualized CBT was more effective than psychodynamic therapy. It was just more often researched. There is a world of difference between saying a treatment is less often researched and saying it has been scientifically discredited.
Evidence-Based Therapy: Science or Marketing? Said 2 Oct 2013
What is a korrent?
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Latest
Full feed →Everything, newest firstFeed Posts and beliefs from the cards above, in one stream.
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- When the Therapy Relationship Is the Problem 31 Aug
- Why “Just Talking” Helps 24 Aug
- What Skilled Psychotherapists Sound Like 17 Aug
- Real Psychotherapists Don’t Act Like Therapists on the Internet 10 Aug
- Why We Act Like Some of Our Thoughts Aren’t Ours 3 Aug
- When Compromised Care Becomes “Best Practice” 27 Jul
Show 13 more
- How Skilled Psychotherapists Really Listen 20 Jul
- This Is Talk Therapy: What Psychotherapy Is and How It Works 13 Jul
- When Psychotherapy Works, Then What? 6 Jul
- Psychological Illiteracy Begins in Psychology 101 29 Jun
- Skilled Therapists Don’t Say “Your Feelings Are Valid” 22 Jun
- The Patient Who Can’t Close the Door 15 Jun
- Podcast: What Makes Psychotherapy Meaningful? 8 Jun
- What I’d Teach Every Grad Student on Day One 1 Jun
- Six Reasons People Repeat Painful Experiences 25 May
- Psychotherapy follows a dose-response curve: it takes more than 20 sessions before half of patients meaningfully improve, and more than 40 before three quarters do. 19 Nov 2017
- The APA's trauma treatment guidelines should be ignored, because they rest only on trials of therapies too brief to have worked. 19 Nov 2017
- No research ever showed manualized CBT to be more effective than psychodynamic therapy; it was only studied more often. 2 Oct 2013
- "Evidence-based therapy" is a branding term rather than a scientific one, and in practice it is a code word for "not psychodynamic". 2 Oct 2013