Overview

Acting on what started as a hunch, Dr. Francis Martin has cataloged well over 20,000 distinct approaches to counseling and psychotherapy that are advertised on the webpages of licensed, practicing mental health providers. No doubt some portion of them are harmful, but the sheer volume of advertised practices and techniques, often with names deceptively similar to actual evidence-based practices, should be cause for concern among all stakeholders in the helping professions - from educators and researchers to policy makers and insurance companies and, especially, consumers. Based on this significant original study, and drawing from other research and supports, Therapy Thieves describes a near-universal crisis in the field and recommends ways to rescue mental health care from itself. The crisis is caused by declining competence among counselors and psychotherapists who have failed to regulate themselves and who, therefore, deliver inadequate - if not harmful - services. In presenting a simple, yet powerful indictment of the field, Dr. Martin advocates for major reforms in several areas of mental health care, including how prospective licensees are trained, supervised and licensed, a major reworking of professional ethics, and the need to establish regulations for mental health care providers. In short, the book calls for major, specific, and urgently needed reforms.

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9780197516782

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Reviews

Warning label: If the truth about what is happening to our counseling profession is difficult for you to hear, do not read this book! Francis Martin has outlined in a stark, albeit humorous manner, the challenges confronting counselors and psychotherapists by asking a simple, thought-provoking question: Why are counselors and psychotherapists committed to failure? In splendid fashion, Martin calls out the intellectual laziness and ethics of professional colleagues who sit back while other colleagues push empirically unsubstantiated, even bogus treatments, causing irreparable harm to the integrity and viability of our profession and our current and future professional practice! This is one timely, engaging book - and a wake-up call for a profession in need of reform and professional advocacy! -Bradley T. Erford, Professor and Director Human Development Counseling Program and Peabody College at Vanderbilt University; 2012-2013 President of the American Counseling Association An enormously entertaining, engaging, and often sobering tour through the often wild and wacky world of contemporary psychotherapy. The author makes an eloquent and forceful case for the need to ground psychological treatment in more rigorous science. An essential read for psychotherapists, would-be psychotherapists, and mental health consumers. -Scott O. Lilienfeld, Ph.D., Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor, Department of Psychology, Emory University; Past President, Society for a Science of Clinical Psychology; Editor, Clinical Psychological Science Reading Therapy Thieves is an uncomfortable experience. Francis Martin documents a disturbing picture of current practices in counseling and psychotherapy-but uncomfortable truths may be needed to motivate us to examine policy that governs our profession as well as to examine our clinical work. It is time to reflect on our field and consider the actions offered in this sobering book. -Bruce E. Wampold, Ph.D., ABPP, Professor Emeritus, University of Wisconsin * Madison *

...this book is a great resource...Recommended. Graduate students, faculty, and professionals. -- T. A. Babb, CHOICE Warning label: If the truth about what is happening to our counseling profession is difficult for you to hear, do not read this book! Francis Martin has outlined in a stark, albeit humorous manner, the challenges confronting counselors and psychotherapists by asking a simple, thought-provoking question: Why are counselors and psychotherapists committed to failure? In splendid fashion, Martin calls out the intellectual laziness and ethics of professional colleagues who sit back while other colleagues push empirically unsubstantiated, even bogus treatments, causing irreparable harm to the integrity and viability of our profession and our current and future professional practice! This is one timely, engaging book - and a wake-up call for a profession in need of reform and professional advocacy! -Bradley T. Erford, Professor and Director Human Development Counseling Program and Peabody College at Vanderbilt University; 2012-2013 President of the American Counseling Association An enormously entertaining, engaging, and often sobering tour through the often wild and wacky world of contemporary psychotherapy. The author makes an eloquent and forceful case for the need to ground psychological treatment in more rigorous science. An essential read for psychotherapists, would-be psychotherapists, and mental health consumers. -Scott O. Lilienfeld, Ph.D., Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor, Department of Psychology, Emory University; Past President, Society for a Science of Clinical Psychology; Editor, Clinical Psychological Science Reading Therapy Thieves is an uncomfortable experience. Francis Martin documents a disturbing picture of current practices in counseling and psychotherapy-but uncomfortable truths may be needed to motivate us to examine policy that governs our profession as well as to examine our clinical work. It is time to reflect on our field and consider the actions offered in this sobering book. -Bruce E. Wampold, Ph.D., ABPP, Professor Emeritus, University of Wisconsin--Madison

Reading Therapy Thieves is an uncomfortable experience. Francis Martin documents a disturbing picture of current practices in counseling and psychotherapy-but uncomfortable truths may be needed to motivate us to examine policy that governs our profession as well as to examine our clinical work. It is time to reflect on our field and consider the actions offered in this sobering book. -Bruce E. Wampold, Ph.D., ABPP, Professor Emeritus, University of Wisconsin * Madison * An enormously entertaining, engaging, and often sobering tour through the often wild and wacky world of contemporary psychotherapy. The author makes an eloquent and forceful case for the need to ground psychological treatment in more rigorous science. An essential read for psychotherapists, would-be psychotherapists, and mental health consumers. -Scott O. Lilienfeld, Ph.D., Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor, Department of Psychology, Emory University; Past President, Society for a Science of Clinical Psychology; Editor, Clinical Psychological Science Warning label: If the truth about what is happening to our counseling profession is difficult for you to hear, do not read this book! Francis Martin has outlined in a stark, albeit humorous manner, the challenges confronting counselors and psychotherapists by asking a simple, thought-provoking question: Why are counselors and psychotherapists committed to failure? In splendid fashion, Martin calls out the intellectual laziness and ethics of professional colleagues who sit back while other colleagues push empirically unsubstantiated, even bogus treatments, causing irreparable harm to the integrity and viability of our profession and our current and future professional practice! This is one timely, engaging book - and a wake-up call for a profession in need of reform and professional advocacy! -Bradley T. Erford, Professor and Director Human Development Counseling Program and Peabody College at Vanderbilt University; 2012-2013 President of the American Counseling Association

Author Information

Francis A. Martin, PhD, is a Retired Professor and Adjunct Instructor in Counselor Education & Supervision at Lindsey Wilson College. He is the Director of The Center for Clinical Training, in Nashville, Tennessee and co-author of Clinical Supervision in the Real World.

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