The End of Psychotherapy

Are we experiencing the dying throes of psychotherapy? Is Freud finished for good? These days, it is assumed that all mental problems are neurological-genetic in nature and can be combated with the use of medicine. Pills, rather than talk. We seem to be right back where we started in the sixties: more people than ever are being institutionalized, patients are increasingly prescribed more and more medication, and electroshock treatment no longer meets with protest. Psychotherapy, in other words, is ‘out’. What went wrong?

Following a line of reasoning as subtle as it is logically necessary, Paul Verhaeghe shows how psychotherapy and the psychiatric profession have lost ground due to the combined effect of pseudo-scientific psychology and the corruptive influence of the pharmaceutical industry. People go to the psychiatrist with very different problems and are much less inclined to introspection and reflection, but expect  to have their problems taken away without any effort on their own part: ‘because you’re worth it!’, as the ads shout.