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Holmes and Lindley's book offers a double vision of the values of psychotherapy. It reflects the interests of both authors, a consultant psychotherapist and a philosopher; it looks at the value of psychotherapy in society as well as values within psychotherapy; and it is concerned with both psychoanalytic psychotherapy and with many other kinds of therapy.
The first part focuses on the value of psychotherapy in society. Their review of the findings suggests that there is increasing evidence that it is both effective and cost effective. They advance ethical arguments for making it more widely and uniformly available and publicly funded; and that other and less extensive treatments such as brief, behavioural, humanistic and community therapy should be introduced or more widely used where appropriate. They review and reject the Marxist and libertarian objections that psychotherapy is a mere palliative to the evils of society, arguing for its liberating and hence potentially subversive, nonconformist nature.
The second part concentrates on some ethical problems within the practice of psychotherapy. The principle of non-self-disclosure raises the problem of how truthful the therapist can be while saying nothing about himself; they explore the temptation for therapists to impose their own version of the truth; and they stress the necessity for both supervision and internal supervision to get over these and other dilemmas as they arise. They raise other ethical problems including the use of paradoxical interventions, how the patient can give informed consent to his treatment, and the possibility of sexual or financial exploitation within psychotherapy. They also consider the use of therapy in coercive contexts like prison, and the problem of maintaining confidentiality when it might put the life or limb of others at risk.
The third part brings the social and the internal worlds of psychotherapy together in looking at the future development of the profession of psychotherapy;