Ponders whether psychotherapy will become a scapegoat in an
increasingly hostile political climate in the United States in 1995. How
there is growing antipathy to the ideas that underlie psychotherapy; Fear
that this hostility will lead to cuts in funding as the nation undergoes
health care reform; How there is a movement within the behavioral
sciences toward the right.
By
PT Staff, published on March 01, 1995
PSYCHOTHERAPY
Will psychotherapy be the fall guy in an increasingly unsympathetic
political climate? Psychotherapists are running scared that antipathy to
the ideas that underlie psychotherapy is growing. Theirs is hardly just
an ideological worry. They fear that any rise in hostility right now will
keep them out of new reimbursement schemes as the nation undergoes de
facto health care reform.
Here's what therapists dread will be held against
psychotherapy:
o Psychotherapists have engaged in unscientific conduct by making
false accusations of sexual abuse based on the implantation of
"repressed" memories.
o Psychotherapy promotes self-interest at the expense of family and
community.
o It has proved powerless against those who are most disordered and
who now hold public life hostage--violent criminals. Indeed, the rise in
violence has coincided with the growth of therapy and its belief in the
possibilities for behavioral change.
o Growing intramural debate about the efficacy of therapy, when
heard outside, makes the whole enterprise sound silly.
o Add the perceived failure of an array of social programs, such as
welfare, since, like psychotherapy itself, they are built on an
optimistic appraisal of human nature.
o Proposed state and federal legislation against abuses of
psychotherapy is billed as consumer protection legislation.
Political thinking is not the only thing getting conservative. A
whole flank of the behavioral sciences is pitching rightward as it
deemphasizes personal change in favor of investment in the rootedness of
behavior in biology, particularly the deep Darwinian ooze. A belief that
behavior is coded in ancient and selfish genes is a powerful rationale
for shifting public funds away from programs that aim to change people by
enriching their environment.
Tags:
antipathy,
behavioral sciences,
budget cut,
conservative,
consumer protection legislation,
false accusations,
federal legislation,
flank,
health care reform,
implantation,
ooze,
personal change,
political climate,
psychotherapists,
repressed memories,
self interest,
selfish genes,
therapy,
violent criminals
