What Price Psychotherapy? a Rejoinder

Abstract

In 1952 Eysenck threw down the gauntlet, when he claimed that psychoanalytical forms of psychotherapy were no more effective than spontaneous remission. As we trudge through the fourth decade of this debate, its quality remains as divisive and acrimonious as ever. Professor Michael Shepherd (1979, 1980) has latterly taken on Eysenck's mantle, averring that psychotherapy is not only ineffective but may actually harm patients. In an editorial in the British Medical Journal (1984), he launched yet a further attack, arguing on this occasion that the psychotherapist is little more than a ‘placebologist’ exerting his effects through nonspecific means. Why bother with highly trained therapists when an inert pill will produce the same result?