Abstract

The practice of psychotherapy is faced with many problems. Among these one of the most important is finding a justifiable theory of practice. Therapeutic practice has been, knowingly or otherwise, indebted to a paradigm of practice called the medical model. The limitations in applying this paradigm are pointed out. But if psychotherapy can no longer utilize the medical model in a significant way, what can be the basis for its practice? Two approaches are outlined. The first tries to glean what is useful from all therapies and can be called therapeutic electicism. The problem with this approach is that therapists have no way of limiting their scope and may, hence, make inappropriate claims for their expertise. A second method is utilized to delimit the boundaries of what therapy can and cannot do by examining the interfaces that it shares with other disciplines such as ethics, politics, law, and religion. Finally, the beginning of a new therapeutic paradigm of practice based on the rules of conversation is suggested