Is Psychotherapy as Dangerous as Psychiatric Drugs?

Lack of science plagues both therapies

On June 18, 2007, Newsweek exposed the oft-overlooked dangers of psychological therapy, including bizarre techniques such as “recovered memory” therapy and “stress debriefing” for disorders that cannot be scientifically substantiated.

The article reveals “…the number of people undergoing potentially risky therapies reaches into the tens of thousands. [The painkiller] Vioxx was yanked from the market for less.”

The Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR), a psychiatric watchdog group, says that while psychotropic drugs and electroshock commonly used in mental health “treatment” have documented physical adverse effects—sometimes deadly—the harmful effects of psychoanalysis and psychotherapy often are as visible.

The Newsweek article addresses the lack of efficacy of these methods, which psychologist John Norcross of Scranton University refers to as “psychoquackery.” In his book, Psychology: A Study of a Science, Dr. Sigmund Koch from the American Psychological Association concluded, “I think it by this time utterly and finally clear that psychology cannot be a coherent science….”

This is a common denominator between psychiatry and psychology: both lack a scientific foundation and the “therapies” that are developed from this faulty premise are potentially dangerous.