ABSTRACT
For the practices of therapy and counselling have to be justified. Take, for example, the typical sufferer who approaches his or her general practice counsellor in search of relief. Right from the beginning it has shuttled between three possible sources of authority: science, magic, and the dogmatic assertions of supposedly "charismatic" founders of various therapeutic "schools". S. Freud, for example, made use at different stages of his career of all three, but with a very distinct emphasis throughout on his own brand of science. The problem with "evidence-based practice" is not that it is the unreasonable demand of a moribund world-view, but simply that the way it has been put forward is deeply dishonest and in the worst possible faith. It could be argued that the "New Paradigm" is in essence a way of shaking off the constraints of the old such that therapy and counselling can continue to be professionally practised unimpeded by "old-fashioned" requirements of reason.
