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11 Int'l J. Offender Therapy 1 (1967)

handle is hein.journals/ijotcc11 and id is 1 raw text is: Editorial PSYCHOTHERAPY differs from other medical specialities in that no adequate attempts have as yet been made to study its efficacy, results and ill-effects. For some therapists it is axio- matic that therapy is invariably beneficial. The failure to insist upon well-designed follow-up studies demonstrates an evasion of scientific standards. When in the last century the gynecologist Semmelweiss pointed out that more women died from sepsis in hospitals than at home, attended only by midwives, he was widely attacked, but his studies of childbed fever formed the basis of modern care. There is need for effective psychotherapy, but it is essential to study its results, not just statistically, but in clinical detail, making use of observations made by both therapists and patients. In this issue we publish in A Failure of Analysis, the description of an articulate, highly intelligent patient, who normalized after only a few interviews in which he was asked to dress, feed and behave normally and was treated as the intelli- gent personality he is. Today, two months after the interviews, he holds a well paid job in computing, has friends, an apartment of his own and a normal relation with his family. He had gone for therapy nine years ago, when he was depressed and dis- illusioned, and might have snapped out of that state spon- taneously. But having his abnormality constantly highlighted, and having to associate in groups with other unbalanced persons accentuated his own imbalance, and the subsequent deterioration and abnormal way of life increased his sense of failure. Probably most people go through bad periods, but their own resilience, or some change of circumstances or help from friends may restore their functioning. The study of the mind is still in the Dark Ages, and though a profuse literature has developed, its claims to describe the con- tents of the mind are not justified. Obvious contradictions are underplayed, or are even claimed to demonstrate the depths of the theory. Understanding the mind is not the prerogative of therapy. Empirical knowledge has existed ever since the beginnigs of civilization, regarding the behavior of governments and govern- ed, parents and children, patients and physicians, and married I

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