Beware the Talking Cure: Psychotherapy May Be Hazardous to Your Mental Health - Softcover

Campbell, Terence W.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0897771478 ISBN 13: 9780897771474

Publisher: Social Issues Resources Series, 1994

Synopsis

Family therapist Terence Campbell provides a much-needed critique of our therapy-happy society. He warns of the dangers that await the unwary, vulnerable client seeking answers for normal life problems. All too often, psychotherapy creates moreharm than healing.

Without condemning all therapy, Campbell takes a hard look at the destructive form psychotherapy has taken for many of its practitioners. In many cases, therapists encourage a sick, dependent relationship in which the client invests undue authority in the supposedly all-wise psychologist. "Many therapists act as if their charisma, and only their charisma, can alleviate a client's distress," Campbell writes.

Beware the Talking Cure is timely and disturbing. Through compelling case histories, Dr. Campbell hammers home his points. Terence W. Campbell, Ph.D., specializes in family therapy and forensic psychology. He maintains a private practice in Sterling Heights, Michigan.

About this title

From Library Journal

Traditional psychotherapy is often either useless, counterproductive, or seriously harmful, argues psychotherapist Campbell in this hard-hitting expose. Moreover, psychotherapy can be reclaimed as an effective tool only by a massive paradigm shift: the client-therapist relationship must be revised, clearly defined goals and specific courses of action determined for each case, and a greater emphasis placed on interpersonal relationships in general. To help clients and prospective clients evaluate individual therapists according to his principles, Campbell includes a list of 40 questions to ask during an initial interview. Consumer guides such as this are important, of course, but many readers will have become so wary of psychotherapy by the time they finish this book that they may decide not to seek help. A more balanced approach, primarily for current clients, is Catherine Johnson's When To Say Goodbye to Your Therapist (LJ 10/15/88).
Marcia Welsh, Guilford Free Lib., Ct.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

Campbell reviews the research results which are regularly ignored by practitioners and finds that evidence for successful treatment is scarce indeed -- Rapport Magazine, Sept./Oct. 1994

About this edition

• Publisher: Social Issues Resources Series
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 0897771478
• ISBN 13: 9780897771474
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 265