Evidence Based Isn’t Always Healing Based
Most “evidence” is built around short-term outcomes:- Completion rates
– Abstinence at discharge
– Attendance figures
– Compliance with a protocol
Those numbers look good on a report, but they don’t tell you whether someone feels safe in their body for the first time in their life.
They don’t measure whether they’ve stopped using control, secrecy, or relationships as their drug of choice.
They don’t capture whether they can be alone without panic, or whether they’ve started to trust themselves again.
In the rush to be measurable, we reduce recovery to what can be ticked off a form, we pathologise survival responses, label them as symptoms, and design interventions to make them disappear.
But when we take away a coping strategy without meeting the pain underneath it, the pain doesn’t vanish – it just finds another outlet.
I’ve sat with clients who “looked great on paper” after treatment.
– Every box ticked.
– No longer using.
– Living independently.
And yet…
– Still dissociated.
– Still in compulsive loops.
– Still unable to feel safe enough to let someone in.
Evidence-based can work – if the evidence we value is wholeness, safety, and the capacity to be in relationship with self and others.
If the evidence is lived experience, not just data points, otherwise, we risk creating systems that meet targets while leaving people unchanged where it matters most.
And does it reflect what healing actually is?Because the most transformative moments I’ve seen in my work wouldn’t fit on a spreadsheet – but they’re the ones that last.