Here is some private e-mail I received.  I received permission to share it
anonymously:  Quoting, with ONLY the identifying information deleted at
the very beginning and very end of the post left off (and this is
indicated with [snip]s):

"[snip]
Subject: Your Major Critique of " Therapy "
Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1998 17:03:05 +1200
MIME-Version: 1.0


Dear Brad

I enjoyed your article very much. While I read it through, I found
myself agreeing with all of your conclusions, especially those regarding
" measurement " of diagnosis and subsequent treatment.

In saying this though, I would like to add one of my own thoughts. I am
of the genuine and firm belief that the practice of clinical psychology,
or in fact any therapeutic or treatment oriented action by a clinician
is based upon a fundamental error, a fallacy in fact.

>From beginning to end, the training of Psychological Clinicians, even to
the very highest post graduate level, is based upon what  I see to be
the DESPERATE validation of CONCEPTS.

At best, clinical psychology is based upon a barely significant
correlation between behavior / physiology and treatment, on average a
vague heuristic based upon previous and relative documented case
histories and at worst, hunches, personal preference and the current
popular diagnostic directions.

To me, and I certainly have been wrong in the past, the volume of
evidence pointing toward the ineffectiveness of  most clinical therapy
is VASTLY greater ( several orders of magnitude ) than the evidence
supporting said effectiveness.

I do not practice as a clinician, and I have no wish to. In good
conscience, and as a health professional, I cannot state to a desperate,
confused, unhappy and suffering patient that " I can help you, I can
find out what is ailing you, I can treat this illness / modify this
behavior, let me reassure you ".

A disproportionately large number of times, I must say " I do not know,
I cannot tell, I understand but I cannot fix it ".

This in itself is not why I chose not to practice. I chose not to
practice because the profession I have trained in continues to
perpetuate a myth, which amounts to a culture of deception.

It will make guarantees which cannot be relationally upheld. Guarantees
of safety and effectiveness which are untested and in fact refuted by
evidence.

I am not saying that there are not some excellent clinicians practicing
in the health sector. I know several I admire and respect highly, but,
the quality I admire in them is not their vast knowledge of treatment,
theory and condition, it is their honesty and realism. It is their
professional statement, in public, that they may be wrong, they do not
know, they state that " this may be it, it has been in the past, but
this is how human behavior works only sometimes, other times, we do not
know, we can only guess, consult, try, experiment and learn further ".

These are merely my thoughts, valid or invalid, I sincerely hope they
cause no offense. Once again, I enjoyed your article very much.

Regards

[snip]

(his degrees includ MA Phil, BA Psych, Dip Clin Psych ...)" (end quote)

--

--
----
** FOR THE ISSUES AND THE FACTS **  See my much praised critique of the
clinical psychology field at:

http://www.future.net/~bradj/it.html (well-regarded by Mahrer, Ivey, Izard,
and other distinguished professors)

Also see my great web resource, the BEST Meta-Index for Psychiatry and
clinical Psychology at:

http://www.future.net/~bradj/father.html