ABSTRACT
At the end of the last chapter we started touching on the question of theory. If we want to do good therapy, we must have some notion of what is going on inside the person. Obviously our ideas about what works in therapy must be based on our ideas about where problems come from. The psychoanalyst has a clear set of ideas about the Oedipus complex, about the Id, ego and superego, and about the psychosexual stages of development. The behaviourist has a clear set of ideas about stimuli, responses, reinforcement and extinction. The cognitive therapist has a definite set of ideas about automatic thoughts and so forth. The humanistic practitioner is in a more difficult position, because there are a number of separate disciplines within it, each with its own notion of development, often not very well worked out or spelled out.
