When You Don't Know Where to Turn / A Self-Diagnosing Guide to Counseling and Therapy

by Steven J. Bartlett

Note that this is a copyrighted Project Gutenberg eBook; it is not in the public domain. Its license, see below, allows for free non-commercial distribution and prohibits its sale or use in derivative works by anyone without the copyright holder's written consent.

When You Don't Know Where to Turn was originally published in 1987 by Contemporary Books. All rights to the book have now reverted to the author, who has decided to make the book available as an open access publication, freely available to readers through Project Gutenberg under the terms of the Creative Commons *Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs license*, which allows anyone to distribute this work without changes to its content, provided that both the author and the original URL from which this work was obtained are mentioned, that the contents of this work are not used for commercial purposes or profit, and that this work will not be used without the copyright holder's written permission in derivative works (i.e., you may not alter, transform, or build upon this work without such permission). The full legal statement of this license may be found at

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*****

This book is dedicated to Karen,
my love, wife, and friend.

Preface to the Project Gutenberg Edition

Nearly three decades have passed since When You Don't Know Where to Turn was first published. In that time, psychiatry, clinical psychology, and counseling have changed a good deal.

Psychiatry has continued on a now well-worn path leading to a more and more inflated universe of diagnostic labels, the majority of which have no known organic basis. Few readers who are not themselves mental health professionals realize that these diagnostic classifications are voted into existence by committees of psychiatrists whose pronouncements magically summon into being a lengthening list of so-called "mental disorders." These pronouncements are then applied to people in order to label their problems (as well as the people who have them), to match their problems with allegedly effective treatments, and in the process to give the impression that a respectable medical process of diagnosis and intervention has been undertaken.