Editing Psychotherapy (section)

=== General critiques <!--This section is linked from multiple articles: do not rename without including an anchor to previous name ([[MOS:HEAD]])-->===
Some critics are skeptical of the healing power of psychotherapeutic relationships.<ref>{{cite book |last=Masson |first=Jeffrey M. |author-link=Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson |year=1988 |title=Against therapy: emotional tyranny and the myth of psychological healing |location=New York |publisher=Atheneum |isbn=978-0689119293 |oclc=17618782|title-link=Against Therapy }}</ref><ref name="Epstein1995">{{cite book |last=Epstein |first=William M. |date=1995 |title=The illusion of psychotherapy |location=New Brunswick, NJ |publisher=[[Transaction Publishers]] |isbn=978-1560002154 |oclc=32086626}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |editor-last=Feltham |editor-first=Colin |date=1999 |title=Controversies in psychotherapy and counselling |location=London; Thousand Oaks, CA |publisher=[[SAGE Publications]] |isbn=978-0761956402 |oclc=45002563}}</ref> Some dismiss psychotherapy altogether in the sense of a scientific discipline requiring professional practitioners,<ref name="Dawes">{{cite book |last=Dawes |first=Robyn M. |author-link=Robyn Dawes |date=1994 |title=House of cards: psychology and psychotherapy built on myth |location=New York |publisher=[[Free Press (publisher)|Free Press]] |isbn=978-0029072059 |oclc=28675086 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/houseofcardspsyc00dawerich }}</ref> instead favoring either nonprofessional help<ref name="Dawes"/> or biomedical treatments.<ref name="WattersOfshe1999">{{cite book |last1=Watters |first1=Ethan |last2=Ofshe |first2=Richard |date=1999 |title=Therapy's delusions, the myth of the unconscious and the exploitation of today's walking worried |location=New York |publisher=[[Charles Scribner's Sons|Scribner]] |isbn=9780684835846 |oclc=40467398 |url=https://archive.org/details/therapysdelusion00etha_0 }}</ref> Others have pointed out ways in which the values and techniques of therapists can be harmful as well as helpful to clients (or indirectly to other people in a client's life).<ref>{{multiref2 | {{cite journal |title=Special section on negative effects from psychological treatments |date=January 2010 |journal=[[American Psychologist]] |volume=65 |issue=1 |pages=13–49 |doi=10.1037/a0015643 |pmid=20063906 |last1=Barlow |first1=D. H. }} | {{cite book |last=Dorpat |first=Theodore L. |date=1996 |title=Gaslighting, the double whammy, interrogation, and other methods of covert control in psychotherapy and psychoanalysis |location=Northvale, NJ |publisher=[[Jason Aronson]] |isbn=978-1568218281 |oclc=34548677}} | {{cite journal |last=Basseches |first=Michael |date=April 1997 |title=A developmental perspective on psychotherapy process, psychotherapists' expertise, and 'meaning-making conflict' within therapeutic relationships: part II |journal=Journal of Adult Development |volume=4 |issue=2 |pages=85–106 |doi=10.1007/BF02510083|s2cid=143991100 }} Basseches coined the term "theoretical abuse" as a parallel to "sexual abuse" in psychotherapy. }}</ref>

Many resources available to a person experiencing emotional distress—the friendly support of friends, peers, family members, clergy contacts, personal reading, healthy exercise, research, and independent coping—all present considerable value. Critics note that humans have been dealing with crises, navigating severe social problems and finding solutions to life problems long before the advent of psychotherapy.<ref>{{cite book |first=Frank |last=Furedi |author-link=Frank Furedi |year=2004 |edition=Reprint |title=Therapy culture: cultivating vulnerability in an uncertain age |publisher=[[Psychology Press]] |isbn=9780415321600 |oclc=52166272}}</ref>

On the other hand, some argue psychotherapy is under-utilized and under-researched by contemporary psychiatry despite offering more promise than stagnant medication development. In 2015, the US [[National Institute of Mental Health]] allocated only 5.4% of its budget to new clinical trials of psychotherapies (medication trials are largely funded by [[pharmaceutical companies]]), despite plentiful evidence they can work and that patients are more likely to prefer them.<ref>{{cite news |last=Friedman |first=Richard A. |date=19 July 2015 |title=Psychiatry's identity crisis |newspaper=[[The New York Times]] |page=SR5 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/19/opinion/psychiatrys-identity-crisis.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161231043810/http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/19/opinion/psychiatrys-identity-crisis.html |archive-date=31 December 2016 }}</ref>

Further critiques have emerged from [[feminist]], [[Social constructionism|constructionist]] and [[Discourse analysis|discourse-analytical]] sources.<ref>{{cite book |last=Cushman |first=Philip |date=1995 |title=Constructing the self, constructing America: a cultural history of psychotherapy |location=Boston |publisher=[[Addison-Wesley]] |isbn=978-0201626438 |oclc=30976460 |url=https://archive.org/details/constructingself00cush }}</ref><ref name="Rose">{{cite book |last=Rose |first=Nikolas S. |author-link=Nikolas Rose |date=1996 |title=Inventing our selves: psychology, power, and personhood |series=Cambridge studies in the history of psychology |location=Cambridge, UK; New York |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |isbn=978-0521434140 |oclc=33440952 |doi=10.1017/CBO9780511752179}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |editor-last=Loewenthal |editor-first=Del |date=2015 |title=Critical psychotherapy, psychoanalysis and counselling: implications for practice |location=Houndmills, Hampshire; New York |publisher=[[Palgrave Macmillan]] |isbn=9781137460578 |oclc=898925104 |doi=10.1057/9781137460585}}</ref> Key to these is the issue of [[Power (social and political)|power]].<ref name="Rose"/><ref>{{cite journal |last=House |first=Richard |date=June 2012 |title=Psychotherapy, politics and the 'common factor' of power |journal=Psychotherapy and Politics International |volume=10 |issue=2 |pages=157–160 |doi=10.1002/ppi.1260}}</ref> In this regard there is a concern that clients are persuaded—both inside and outside the consulting room—to understand themselves and their difficulties in ways that are consistent with therapeutic ideas.<ref name="Epstein1995"/><ref name="Rose"/> This means that alternative ideas (e.g., feminist,<ref>{{cite journal |last=McLellan |first=Betty |date=August 1999 |title=The prostitution of psychotherapy: a feminist critique |journal=British Journal of Guidance & Counselling |volume=27 |issue=3 |pages=325–337 |doi=10.1080/03069889908256274}}</ref> economic,<ref>{{cite journal |last=Pavón-Cuéllar |first=David |date=October 2014 |title=The Freudo-Marxist tradition and the critique of psychotherapeutic ideology |journal=Psychotherapy and Politics International |volume=12 |issue=3 |pages=208–219 |doi=10.1002/ppi.1336}}</ref> spiritual<ref>{{cite book |last1=Moodley |first1=Roy |last2=West |first2=William |date=2005 |title=Integrating traditional healing practices into counseling and psychotherapy |series=Multicultural aspects of counseling and psychotherapy |volume=22 |location=Thousand Oaks, CA |publisher=[[SAGE Publications]] |isbn=978-0761930464 |oclc=57283684}}</ref>) are sometimes implicitly undermined.<ref>{{cite journal |last=House |first=Richard |date=August 1999 |title='Limits to therapy and counselling': deconstructing a professional ideology |journal=British Journal of Guidance & Counselling |volume=27 |issue=3 |pages=377–392 |doi=10.1080/03069889908256278}}</ref> Critics suggest that we idealize the situation when we think of therapy only as a helping relationship—arguing instead that it is fundamentally a political practice, in that some cultural ideas and practices are supported while others are undermined or disqualified, and that while it is seldom intended, the therapist–client relationship always participates in society's power relations and political dynamics.<ref name="Epstein1995"/><ref>{{cite book |last=Epstein |first=William M. |date=2006 |title=Psychotherapy as religion: the civil divine in America |location=Reno, NV |publisher=[[University of Nevada Press]] |isbn=978-0874176780 |oclc=62889079}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Throop |first=Elizabeth A. |date=2009 |title=Psychotherapy, American culture, and social policy: immoral individualism |series=Culture, mind, and society |location=New York |publisher=[[Palgrave Macmillan]] |isbn=978-0230609457 |oclc=226357146 |doi=10.1057/9780230618350}}</ref> A noted academic who espoused this criticism was [[Michel Foucault]].<ref>{{multiref2 | {{cite journal |last=Marks |first=Sarah |date=April 2017 |title=Psychotherapy in historical perspective |journal=[[History of the Human Sciences]] |volume=30 |issue=2 |pages=3–16 |doi=10.1177/0952695117703243 |pmid=28690369 |pmc=5484460 |quote=Michel Foucault, in what has perhaps become the most well-known critique of psychiatric and therapeutic interventions, identified a shift in the way western society conceptualized madness with the establishment of 'moral treatment' at the end of the 18th century... }} | {{cite journal |last=Guilfoyle |first=Michael |date=February 2005 |title=From therapeutic power to resistance? Therapy and cultural hegemony |journal=[[Theory & Psychology]] |volume=15 |issue=1 |pages=101–124 |doi=10.1177/0959354305049748 |s2cid=145491324 |quote=Foucault's views have been used to highlight problems of power in a variety of 'mental health' fields: in nursing (e.g. Clinton & Hazelton, 2002), social work (e.g. Foote & Frank, 1999), psychiatry (e.g. Ali, 2002), and in the cross-disciplinary practices of psychotherapy (most notably in narrative therapy—e.g. Flaskas & Humphreys, 1993; Swann, 1999; White & Epston, 1990). However, there is no single 'Foucauldian' approach to power, or indeed to therapy, and his ideas are used, as he intended, more in the manner of a 'tool kit' of ideas than as a coherent theoretical account.}} | {{cite book |last1=Isack |first1=Sharonne |last2=Hook |first2=Derek |chapter=The psychological imperialism of psychotherapy |date=20 October 1995 |title=1st Annual South African Qualitative Methods Conference: "A spanner in the works of the factory of truth" |url=http://www.criticalmethods.org/spanner.htm |publisher=Critical Methods Society |chapter-url=http://www.criticalmethods.org/hook.htm |location=Johannesburg, South Africa |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140419043338/http://www.criticalmethods.org/spanner.htm |archive-date=19 April 2014 }} }}</ref>