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Manjari Narayan's avatar

Yup, this is a common problem with coaches, therapists, doctors, pharmacology, etc.. It is often why the effect size of all psychological and pharmaceutical interventions seem to decrease over time. Not just regression to the mean, but because a flaky breakthrough gives a sense of improvement and optimism shows up in all the standard and coarse psychological or clinical instruments. Most studies only study 10-12 weeks and don't track long term results. It is a bit hard to distinguish this phenomenon from the more positive hypothesis that the intervention created a temporary period of plasticity that faded.

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Chris Lakin's avatar

LessWrong version: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/bqPY63oKb8KZ4x4YX

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