Does Science Show What 12 Steps Know?

A quote: "Yet the success of the 12-step approach may ultimately be explained through medical science and psychology."

Wait, what? Psychology doesn't explain things, it describes them. If it were possible for psychology to explain things, it would become a science, and because of established principles and reliable evidence, clinical psychologists would no longer be free to offer any treatment that comes into their heads.

But this is a very unlikely outcome. Psychology's biggest obstacle is its subject, the mind, an entity not accessible to objective empirical observation. Psychology's standing has declined to the point that the director of the National Institute of Mental Health, saying "patients with mental disorders deserve better", recently decided to abandon psychology's "bible", the DSM, as a source for science (it will remain as a diagnostic guide):

http://www.nimh.nih.gov/about/director/2013/transforming-dia...

This is not to say that 12-step programs don't work. It is to say that the reasons they work are not a realistic subject for scientific research.