ABSTRACT
In a seminal book concerning the benefits of psychotherapy (Smith, Glass, & Miller, 1980), Smith concluded that “study after study has demonstrated that psychotherapy”—which includes behaviour therapy and cognitive behaviour therapy—“is an effective treatment for a whole host of emotional problems and mental disorders”. Similarly, Shapiro (in Roth & Fonagy, 1996) contends that “there is more, and better quality, scientific evidence to support psychotherapy than for many other interventions in health care to-day” (p. viii). Barlow (1994) reported that psychotherapy is clearly more effective than social placebos and “in many cases . . . as effective or more effective than pharmacological approaches with proven efficacy”. Luhrmann (2000) wrote that patients who are offered only medication and no psychotherapy are being subjected to “a kind of institutionalized malpractice”. His research showed that such patients “do less well, are readmitted more quickly, diagnosed more inaccurately and medicated more randomly” than those treated with psychotherapy.
