ABSTRACT
The person-centred approach has been criticised as lacking a theory of personality and, in particular, of child development and thus as having an inadequate view of how mental and emotional distress may arise. This is often more focused and the criticism becomes one of the absence of an explanation for `psychoses' and `neuroses' as they are de®ned and understood in the medical model and, to some extent, in psychoanalysis. It is claimed that from this lack of clarity about the origins of distress there arises a disregard for assessment and this amounts to professional irresponsibility. Leaving aside the evident logical ¯aw of criticising one theory because it does not give rise to the same conclusions as another, is this charge true and does it matter one way or the other?
