Nice initial analysis to get some ballpark numbers on this. You probably already considered this and I have no insight into the profession but I would imagine therapists often work with patients having mental health problems with lower or very little treatment response compared to depression/anxiety.
You also wrote that the estimate is not replaceability-adjusted but what is your basic estimate about this factor? Similar to the replaceability of medical doctors? My intuition is that the amount of therapists is more limited by the number of therapist offices than by the supply of eager psych students. But I also haven’t had a detailed look into Lynette Byes model yet to see if it’s mentioned there.
Thanks. Yes, many therapists work with people who have mental health problems with weaker treatment response to psychotherapy such as bipolar disorder, psychotic disorders and various personality disorders. This lowers the average impact or effectiveness of psychotherapy over the whole population treated
I haven’t tried to make explicit estimate of replaceability. My baseline estimate would be the same number as used for doctors (0.6 in 80000 hours article) because both occupations are highly skilled.
I think the replaceability is dependent on the specific country system and conditions, ie. the educational system that enables a person to become a psychotherapist and the labour market. In Finland, where I live, anybody who is a licensed psychotherapist can set up their own therapist office (by this I mean a private practice). Considering Finland, my (considerably uncertain) hunch is that number of licensed psychotherapists is most limited by the number of high quality applicants (you need a relevant masters degree and several years of clinical experience to apply) to the psychotherapy training programs. But even if you add a psychotherapist to the pool of people willing and able to work as a psychotherapist, you will not very likely be adding a one full-time therapist worth of therapist-hours to the pool of therapy given because some people (likely those less skilled and/or those who have graduated from less popular schools of psychotherapy) will probably be working less.
Nice initial analysis to get some ballpark numbers on this. You probably already considered this and I have no insight into the profession but I would imagine therapists often work with patients having mental health problems with lower or very little treatment response compared to depression/anxiety.
You also wrote that the estimate is not replaceability-adjusted but what is your basic estimate about this factor? Similar to the replaceability of medical doctors? My intuition is that the amount of therapists is more limited by the number of therapist offices than by the supply of eager psych students. But I also haven’t had a detailed look into Lynette Byes model yet to see if it’s mentioned there.
Thanks. Yes, many therapists work with people who have mental health problems with weaker treatment response to psychotherapy such as bipolar disorder, psychotic disorders and various personality disorders. This lowers the average impact or effectiveness of psychotherapy over the whole population treated
I haven’t tried to make explicit estimate of replaceability. My baseline estimate would be the same number as used for doctors (0.6 in 80000 hours article) because both occupations are highly skilled.
I think the replaceability is dependent on the specific country system and conditions, ie. the educational system that enables a person to become a psychotherapist and the labour market. In Finland, where I live, anybody who is a licensed psychotherapist can set up their own therapist office (by this I mean a private practice). Considering Finland, my (considerably uncertain) hunch is that number of licensed psychotherapists is most limited by the number of high quality applicants (you need a relevant masters degree and several years of clinical experience to apply) to the psychotherapy training programs. But even if you add a psychotherapist to the pool of people willing and able to work as a psychotherapist, you will not very likely be adding a one full-time therapist worth of therapist-hours to the pool of therapy given because some people (likely those less skilled and/or those who have graduated from less popular schools of psychotherapy) will probably be working less.