Flaky breakthroughs pervade inner work. Almost no practitioners track outcomes
Has someone you know ever had a “breakthrough”… only to be no different a few weeks later?
![Ulisse Mini @MiniUlisse
after my @[redacted] retreat I was like "I'm never going to be depressed again!" then proceeded to get depressed again because I was no longer meditating 8hrs/day isolated from everything in my life, lol
2:42 PM · May 10, 2025 · 23.9K Views](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!7iT2!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F9f008073-c393-410b-9eaa-3754d9679641_1125x851.jpeg "Ulisse Mini @MiniUlisse
after my @[redacted] retreat I was like \"I'm never going to be depressed again!\" then proceeded to get depressed again because I was no longer meditating 8hrs/day isolated from everything in my life, lol
2:42 PM · May 10, 2025 · 23.9K Views")
Just as “flaky breakthroughs” are pervasive with psychedelics, they’re also pervasive with coaching, retreats, meditation, and bodywork.
Flaky breakthroughs can set people back years.
This investigation discovered almost no inner work practitioners in my network track if they’re facilitating flaky breakthroughs or sustained life improvement.
Discovering practitioners ignore outcomes
Earlier this year, I attempted to make a list of the best practitioners on my area of twitter. 20+ coaches reached out, and I asked each to share the best evidence that they had helped coachees improve their lives.
I was hoping for stories like: “worked with a man who had never asked women out. hundreds of hours of IFS and meditation didn’t do it for him. after our first session, he asked out multiple easily… several months later he was in a happy relationship.”
Instead, the coaches shared testimonials like:
The session I just had was really nice. I felt a big release near the end!
They have such a kind presence. Best coach I’ve ever worked with!
Evidence of life improvement was almost not referenced.
I discovered that even well-respected practitioners don’t track results. For example, a well-known coach posted a video stating he’d discovered “how procrastination can completely dissolve” for a man. When the coach was asked how this claim had been verified (did the effect last? did he ever launch the site he was procrastinating on?), he explained: “I do not follow up on folks after coaching as that would feel intrusive to me.”
Several months later I looked the man up and he apparently hadn’t launched anything.
In another case, a popular inner work retreat calls itself “data-driven” and “life-changing”… but doesn’t track whether alumnis’ lives improve. When an alumnus of the retreat offered to competently handle all outcome tracking for free, the retreat declined without explanation.
In the end, I found one—maybe two?—practitioners who track if their work leads to people living better lives.
Thanks to Brian Toomey for the conversations that prompted this post.
V1.7: 2025 Jun 4 - 2026 Feb 10.
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. The resulting 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. Long term results are prone to a lot of missing data from people who don't benefit. It is hard to distinguish this phenomenon from the more positive hypothesis that the intervention created a temporary period of actual neural plasticity that faded.
LessWrong version: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/bqPY63oKb8KZ4x4YX