[[8]] Eysenck, "The Battle over Therapeutic Effectiveness," p. 57.
Psychotherapy of any kind applies techniques that are based on certain theories, and these theories demand not only that there should be correlation between success and length of treatment, but also that the training and experience of the therapist should be extremely important. To find that neither of these corollaries is in fact borne out must be an absolute death blow to any claims to have demonstrated the effectiveness of psychotherapy.[[9]]
[[9]] Ibid.
The pessimism produced by these conclusions was summed up by Hans J. Eysenck, professor at the Institute of Psychiatry in London:
I have always felt that it is completely unethical to subject neurotic patients to a treatment the efficacy of which has not been proven, and indeed, the efficacy of which is very much in doubt—so much so that there is no good evidence for it, in spite of hundreds of studies devoted to the question. Patients are asked to spend money and time they can ill afford, and subject themselves to a gruelling experience, to no good purpose at all; this surely cannot be right. At least there should be a statutory warning to the effect that the treatment they are proposing to enter has never been shown to be effective, is very lengthy and costly, and may indeed do harm to the patient.[[10]]
[[10]] Eysenck, "The Battle over Therapeutic Effectiveness," in Does Psychotherapy Really Help People?, p. 59.
WHY PESSIMISM IS UNFOUNDED
I hold all contemporary psychiatric approaches—all "mental-health" methods—as basically flawed because they all search for solutions along medical-technical lines. But solutions for what? For life! But life is not a problem to be solved. Life is something to be lived, as intelligently, as competently, as well as we can, day in and day out. Life is something we must endure. There is no solution for it.[[11]]
[[11]] Thomas Szasz, interviewed in Jonathan Miller, States of Mind (New York: Pantheon Books, 1983), p. 290.