Published online by Cambridge University Press: 29 January 2018
Psychotherapy is the art of relieving psychiatric problems by psychological means. Which problems are psychiatric and which means of treatment are psychological could be debated at length. The boundaries of psychotherapy impinge on many areas—faith-healing, religious counselling, the many caring professions, psycho-pharmacology and neurophysiology. Numerous ideas and methods are subsumed under the term psychotherapy. Some psychotherapists confine their view of psychotherapy to a limited theory and technique, while others are more comprehensive in their practice and encompass a variety of viewpoints. In the past many different schools of thought proliferated, each claiming the superiority of its own methods and its theory, while being neglectful of other techniques and ideas. New ideas would often be treated as heresy, while pragmatism would be regarded with suspicion.
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