It is customary for psychotherapists to write diagnostic assessments on prospective patients, either for their own use or for the use of those to whom the patient is referred for treatment. But our theories are not sufficiently advanced for such assessments to be very useful in indicating suitable treatment accurately. Indeed, on the whole, assessors refer patients to colleagues trained as they were trained, Freudians to Freudians, Kleinians to Kleinians, Gestalt to Gestalt, cognitive to cognitive, or else they refer according to the requirements of the institution they work in. Diagnosis does not indicate treatment in any generally agreed way.

Two attempts at a more systematic approach are sketched but, while we are waiting for diagnostic theory to catch up to the point where we can use it for therapy, some interim measures are suggested which would do more justice than is now done, both to the variety of human distress and the variety of therapeutic procedures currently available.