This month’s Harper’s Magazine had an article on the smorgasbord of cognitive behavioral therapies: “The War on Unhappiness: Goodbye Freud, Hello Positive Thinking” by Gary Greenberg:

…all these paths lead to the mountaintop, a miracle known to my profession as the Dodo Bird Effect: psychologist Saul Rosenzweig’s discovery, in 1936, that therapeutic orientation doesn’t matter because all orientations work. (Rosenzweig subtitled his paper “Everyone Has Won and All Must Have Prizes,” the verdict pro- nounced by the dodo in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.) The Dodo Bird Effect has been borne out by numerous studies since, with one elaboration.

Which made me think of strategy advice from the website “What the Fuck is My Social Media ‘Strategy’?”, with gems like:

Expose new users to the brand through organic conversations

and

Harness social currency to drive buzz

The commitment, communications and critical thought necessary to meaningfully adopt any strategy will help more than whatever is contained in the plan itself. That, and as the Harper’s article continues:

The single factory that makes a difference in outcome is faith: the patient must believe in the therapist, and the therapist must believe in the orientation. For therapy to work, both parties must have faith, sometimes against all reason, that their expedition will succeed.