Therapy's Delusions: The Myth of the Unconscious and the Exploitation of Today's Walking Worried

From the critically acclaimed authors of Making Monsters, a no-holds-barred critique of talk therapy that will forever change your view of the couch.

In this clearheaded and courageous book, Ethan Watters and Richard Ofshe expose the pseudo-science behind the twentieth century's most enduring myth -- Freud's theory of the psychodynamic mind. Despite the lack of credible evidence for a powerful unconscious that controls our behavior, a huge number of therapists continue to base their practice on the idea that only they can uncover their patients' unconscious motivations, luring thousands of Americans, from the mildly demoralized to the seriously ill, down dangerous and arbitrary paths of treatment.

Therapy's Delusions reveals how, over the years, talk therapy has masqueraded as a scientific discipline and has cost patients time, money, and their mental well-being. Waters and Ofshe demonstrate how patients, therapists, and society alike are fooled by the stories created in therapy. This back-and-forth belief-building process has popularized countless faddish and speculative notions, some of the most aberrant of which have popped up in recent years, including the recovered memory trend the authors exposed in Making Monsters.

Therapy's Delusions also makes a decisive case for the biomedical approach to mental health care. In addition to the celebrated success of drugs like Prozac, revolutionary advances are being made in genetic research and in the field of cognitive and behavioral counseling. This book is a powerful call to action for reforming the poorly regulated mental health profession, so that no more patients are misled by a myth that has held sway over American minds for far too long.

Talk therapy's tight grip on both its patients and practitioners is exactly why it deserve close examination. Brilliantly argued, Therapy's Delusions is a crucial addition to the dialogue about Freud's legacy and essential reading for anyone considering taking his or her troubles to a psychodynamic therapist.