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Psychotherapy and psychoanalysis are in a serious crisis. More than ever before, there is distrust of the behavior and intentions of those who practice the healing arts and a lack of confidence in the efficacy of their clinical methods. Because of criticism by other behavioral scientists, and the many dissatisfactions of patients, the public no longer regards the healing arts as the panaceas they were touted as for decades (Goldberg, 1996). No less disturbing is the
recent finding that many experienced practitioners themselves have limited confidence in the clinical procedures they recommend to their patients or in the work of their fellow practitioners (Goldberg, 1992).
An explanation for psychotherapy's dire condition, according to Dawes, is that, owing to their rapid growth and financial success, psychology and psychotherapy have set aside the commitment they professed in their early days: “to establish a mental health profession that would be based on research findings, employing insofar as possible well-validated techniques and principles” (p. vii).
As a result of psychology's and psychotherapy's abandoning a scientifically verifiable basis for clinical endeavors, Dawes claims, research studies convincingly indicate that professional psychotherapists are no more skilled than are paraprofessionals with little training. Moreover, they have no “special abilities in diagnosing mental distress and predicting human behavior, or in evaluating what causes particular people to behave as they do” (p. 13). Incredibly, the reason for this, Dawes asserts, is that even seasoned practitioners have not learned “anything from clinical experience with distressed people that cannot be learned by reading textbooks” (p. 13).
It should be pointed out that Dawes is partially misrepresenting research on professions versus paraprofessionals. While evidence does show that nonprofessional counselors, such as humanities professors, may be as competent with such clients as students at the u