Citation

Szasz T. Br. J. Psychother. 1998; 15(2): 216-228.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1998, John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/j.1752-0118.1998.tb00444.x

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

I use the term?psychotherapy? as the name of a freely contracted relationship between two competent and responsible adults, one paying the other for assisting him, by means of a dialogue, to live his life better. In addition, I distinguish sharply between voluntary psychotherapy, whose wellspring is the patient's need for helping the Self and involuntary interventions called ?psychotherapy?, whose wellspring is the family's (or the court's) need for controlling the Other. The former rests on consent, the latter on coercion. It is just as absurd to conflate voluntary and involuntary?psychotherapeutic? relations as it is to conflate sexual relations between consenting adults and sexual assault called ?rape?. After a brief critical overview of the development of modern psychotherapy - epitomized by psychoanalysis - I offer some observations on the current proliferation of?psychotherapies'under cultural and political-economic conditions inimical to the only therapy I value, which is contingent on a human relationship in which personal assistance is secured by an equality of self-restraint on the part of ?therapist? and ?patient?. Dare to be fearful, when all about you are full of presumption and confidence. (Edmund Burke 1789/1992)