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“Psychotherapy only has social meaning; its pervasiveness is explained not by what it does with patients in the clinic but rather by its ideological content - its affirmation of central social values, notably a misguided sense of individualism that is disingenuously heroic and that may be socially destructive.”
― Psychotherapy As Religion: The Civil Divine In America
― Psychotherapy As Religion: The Civil Divine In America
“The field [of psychotherapy] persists as a popular cultural institution elaborating the cherished habits of the American people. Psychotherapy is one of the culture's socializing institutions, performing a largely symbolic role in promoting the American religion of an impossible and perhaps even cruel individualism.”
― Psychotherapy As Religion: The Civil Divine In America
― Psychotherapy As Religion: The Civil Divine In America
“[T]he entire field is pseudoscientific and best understood as an elaborate mysticism only differentiated from frank religion, even its crackpot fringes, by seemingly modern orientation and the cant of science.”
― Psychotherapy As Religion: The Civil Divine In America
― Psychotherapy As Religion: The Civil Divine In America
“The distinction between the strangely novel and psychotherapy is one of familiarity and social acceptance, not of clinically proven effectiveness. Psychotherapy has been institutionalized by citizen satisfaction, but not because of a clinical utility demonstrated through credible science. Alternative medicine is alternative because of its use of pseudoscience. Psychotherapy is mainstream culture, not mainstream clinical science.”
― Psychotherapy As Religion: The Civil Divine In America
― Psychotherapy As Religion: The Civil Divine In America
“The meaning of the field is derived not from objective evidence of effectiveness but from the preferences of the culture - a sociological marvel rather than a clinical one.”
― Psychotherapy As Religion: The Civil Divine In America
― Psychotherapy As Religion: The Civil Divine In America
“Psychotherapy's reliance on belief, the power of self-invention through the expectancies of the patient, is so central that illusion has literally become reality in many therapies. The therapist assists the patient to contrive a satisfying series of illusions. [...] Yet the forms of illusion are not innocent and unique inventions of creative minds but rather the prescribed devices of socialization.”
― Psychotherapy As Religion: The Civil Divine In America
― Psychotherapy As Religion: The Civil Divine In America
