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What Price Psychotherapy? a Rejoinder

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

Sidney Bloch  and
Michael J. Lambert
Sidney Bloch*
Affiliation:
Warneford Hospital, Oxford OX3 7JX and University of Oxford
Michael J. Lambert
Affiliation:
Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah, USA
*
∗Correspondence
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Extract

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?

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Comments
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 146 , Issue 1 , January 1985 , pp. 96 - 98
Copyright
Copyright © 1985 The Royal College of Psychiatrists 

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