But the therapist is not God, not even a priest or a sage, and must prompt the suffer to heal himself through his own deities, and this involves finding them. This also speaks to me of how formalised 'registration' procedures etc, whilst purporting to 'protect' clients from 'bad' practitioners, can utterly crush the evolutionary process described in the quote. Such 'works of art' have never been bounded by number and length of sessions, the venue where the interaction might take place, nor the type of interaction. Tom Peterkin A leading Scottish psychiatrist is to publish research which shows that counselling disaster victims such as those at Paddington does nothing to protect them from post-traumatic stress disorder. Freeman, a consultant at Edinburgh's Royal Hospital says his study, which will be submitted for publication in the British Journal of Psychiatry, gives evidence to further question automatic counselling.
Counselling is ineffective.
Freeman used 100 accident victims, who were admitted to casualty at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary for his study financed by the Mental Health Foundation and the Scottish Office. Most subjects had been involved in road traffic accidents or had been assaulted. Half the sample was 'debriefed', where counsellors make them relive their ordeal within 48 hours of the incident. The remainder were left to cope without the help of a counsellor. The participants were interviewed at regular intervals until six months after their ordeal.