Should "Research" Guide Psychotherapy?

A couple of  months ago,  a patient was telling me that a research study from some years ago that had concluded that there's no such thing as bisexuality was recently debunked. (She probably was intrigued by this because she's bisexual).  I told the patient that I was surprised anyone had believed the original study, because bisexuality has been documented in historical, religious and literary texts going back thousands of years.

We live in a society that often seems to worship science, or what is alleged to be science, and denigrates common sense and the accumulated wisdom of the human species. The media play a strong role in this disinformation, advertising the results of each recent research study on a popular topic with headlines that blare "Scientists Say...." "Studies Report..." Any scientist knows that one research study is almost meaningless. Research results have to be replicated to have any credibility.

Social science research is trickier than research in the natural sciences, because research into human behavior is often based on the self-reporting of the subjects. I was amused by a recent story in The New York Times that declared "Severe Mental Illness Found to Drop in Young, Defying Perceptions" http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/21/health/reduction-is-found-in-severe-mental-illness-among-the-young.html?ref=health
Not only was the headline and much of the article based on one research study, but the study was based on parental perceptions. Surely one does not have to be a scientist or a psychotherapist to know that parents' perceptions of their children are distorted by the parents' wishes and fears. Although the study compared two sets of parental perceptions, from the past and the present, the changes in perceptions might have nothing to do with changes in  the children's symptoms. The study may in fact be more useful for how it is documenting that parents are increasingly underestimating their children's symptoms. That possibility would be in line with research (as well as anecdotal observations by therapists) that people are becoming more narcissistic and that parents are more psychologically invested in their children, than in the past.

I frequently get communications from health insurance companies exhorting clinicians to use "evidence-based" practices. I often wonder which evidence they have in mind. Over the course of my career and my life, I have seen different types of therapy first promoted and then debunked. When I decide what techniques to use with patients, I don't base my decisions on the latest research study. I base my decisions on what theories and techniques have stood the test of time, and what techniques I have found previously helpful in my own practice for particular types of patients. I use my professional experience, common sense, and the accumulated wisdom of previous generations of therapists.