ABSTRACT
Over the past several decades, there has risen an increasing call for evidence-based practice in the field of psychotherapy, which has inevitably led to a kind of sorting – those models which are not easily empirically and quantitatively validated, to the historical dust bin of shame; and those which can, into managed care. Many models claiming to be evidence-based do so on the basis of too small, faulty, or insufficiently tested research trials. Yet an evidence-based paradigm has been doing its best to discredit fundamentally person-centered psychotherapies for at least a couple of decades now. We must be cautious of increasing demands for “evidence” and remain wary of peddlers of newly fashioned practices. Faith, hope, relationship, and an unfathomable number of other factors impossible to quantify or procedurize, many external to the therapeutic enterprise, may catalyze therapeutic transformation. If a psychotherapist’s technique is too technical, his efforts to help may be worthless. The mechanisms of some psychotherapies undermine their therapeutic value. If a therapist is not present as a warm, accepting, genuine, caring person, the power center of therapy remains turned off.
