title: Beware the Talking Cure: Psychotherapy May Be Hazardous to Your Mental Health
author:  Terence W. Campbell 
description: Traditional psychotherapy is often either useless, counterproductive, or seriously harmful, argues psychotherapist Campbell in this hard-hitting expose. Moreover, psychotherapy can be reclaimed as an effective tool only by a massive paradigm shift: the client-therapist relationship must be revised, clearly defined goals and specific courses of action determined for each case, and a greater emphasis placed on interpersonal relationships in general. To help clients and prospective clients evaluate individual therapists according to his principles, Campbell includes a list of 40 questions to ask during an initial interview. Consumer guides such as this are important, of course, but many readers will have become so wary of psychotherapy by the time they finish this book that they may decide not to seek help. A more balanced approach, primarily for current clients, is Catherine Johnson's When To Say Goodbye to Your Therapist (LJ 10/15/88).<br /><i>Marcia Welsh, Guilford Free Lib., Ct.</i><br />Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
zlib_text: ## Afterword
  
  
  
  
  
  In choosing to edit this book on the hazards of psychotherapy
  
  
  practice, I initially worried that the topic would prove to be depressing.
  
  
  Indeed, many of the issues addressed in the volume are of a sobering or
  
  
  unsettling nature. What I failed to anticipate, however, was the inspiration I
  
  
  have derived from working on the project. It has been heartening to encounter
  
  
  colleagues who have the courage to tackle such difficult and distressing
  
  
  matters.
  
  
  
  
  
  In a discussion of the stresses and frustrations inherent in
  
  
  clinical practice, Greben (1975) remarks that the prevention of demoralization
  
  
  is most likely to arise “from our continual insistence upon seeing and
  
  
  describing conditions of our work as they really are” (p. 432). This
  
  
  compilation represents an attempt to do just that. But the process must be
  
  
  ongoing, and for that to happen, we will need to make some changes in our
  
  
  professional culture.
  
  
  
  
  
  In the current climate, it can be difficult for t