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indifference even to the ancient history of each one of us, and an
inspired impulse to attempt something new. All sorts of American
traits support this: a desire for speedy results, egalitarianism, optimism
(which scants the dark and demonic psychological forces postulated in
Freudian theory), an openness to experience, unabashed eclecticism,
theoretical confusion. Assertiveness therapy, for example, can seem
quite plausible in this perspective-why not? Whatever the causes of
lack of assertiveness, no matter how numerous and intricate and
ancient, why bother with them? Why not correct the condition with
certain specific, practical, limited techniques neither magical nor
mystical? Freud's stoic poetry may speak to some among us more than
the poetry of B. F. Skinner or Werner Erhard of
est,
or Dr. Janov or Joel
Goldsmith or even the ponderous awkward writing of Sullivan,
Fromm and Horney. Such criteria may not be the ones that matter,
however. The heroic exemplary role of Freud, of Marx, of the
nineteenth-century sages and poets, their taste and literary style and
intellectual force, may not offer anything to therapeutic procedure.
In any case, psychoanalytic claims for therapeutic success are
questionable: not only are they based on very meagre evidence, but they
are in fact not measureable in any meaningful way. Behavior therapy,
on the other hand, despite its impoverished vocabulary, can show
objective results of some value: for example, autistic children who had
been totally withdrawn did learn
to
speak and respond when operant
conditioning was used. Sex therapy is demonstrably effective, as are
Alcoholics Anonymous, Weight Watchers, Smokenders, phobia ther–
apy, and other techniques which combine behavior therapy with
procedures from group therapy and psychodrama. Their limited
conception of human nature may be distasteful but their effectiveness
should not be minimized. Extremely short psychotherapy is another
technique that can claim success, and orthodox psychoanalysts are
among those most interested in it. Encounter therapy, Esalen,
est,
family therapy, and innumerable other therapies of the present day can
also claim noticeable constructive changes in behavior as well as in
subjective states. Mystical or existentialist methods, or therapies which
depend on enthrallment may nevertheless effect profound transforma–
tions in feeling and in action, in life outside the consulting room,
palpable changes which certainly bear comparison with the unresolved
negative transference in which so many analyses remain stalled. Which
changes are the ones to be measured, then?
Radical therapy is one of the new therapies Dr. Kovel finds
sympathetic, although it is certainly open
to
theoretical questioning.
