ABSTRACT
The shelf is bare on which credible proof of the effectiveness of psychotherapy should be accumulating. For more than fifty years, the field of psychotherapy has accepted at least the desirability of social science methods in testing its effectiveness. Yet, despite its avowed commitments, the field has routinely defied standard procedures of clinical proof. Today there is not one credible study conforming to the basic rules of objective proof that testifies to the effectiveness of any psychotherapeutic treatment. To the contrary, the manifest biases of the research, as well as systematic inferences of client deterioration, suggest grounds on which to assume the actual ineffectiveness and possible harm of psychotherapy-not just the indeterminacy of its benefits.
