Psychotherapy is a science

This is the introduction to a talk given 6/15/97 at the Wright Institute in Berkeley Ca. I thought it would be fun to share Joe's recent thinking:

Psychotherapy is a science. We must seek to understand mental processes by observations and by experiments.

Interpretations of facts are always provisional and must be testable by independent observers. Such observations and experiments must be repeated, and in the process, new facts invariably will be uncovered and these, in turn, will require verification.

Psychotherapy must encompass continuous testing and psychotherapists must be prepared to reject disproved ideas and to make ongoing corrections with new findings.

Otherwise, they will regard psychotherapy as a completed science, like anatomy, and nothing new is to be expected. This is patently not the case.Psychotherapy cannot be advanced by case reports, anecdotes, essays and reviews. Such efforts merely perpetuate old ideas and put the science of psychoanalysis on ice. It is time to stop making progress by glaciation.

Replies:

BRAVO!, by Jim Duffy, 5/16/97 The Truth Hurts- sometimes, by Jessica, 5/21/97 I Would Like to Read about It--Especially Re: CMT, by Jim Duffy, 5/22/97 sympathetic understandings, by Jessica, 5/23/97 Application of Control Mastery Theory to an Understanding of Mammalian Sleep--Part 1, by Vic Comello, 5/17/97 Ditto--Part 2, by Vic Comello, 5/17/97

| Behavior OnLine Home Page | Disclaimer |

Copyright © 1996-2004 Behavior OnLine, Inc. All rights reserved.