Is all psychotherapy pseudoscientific?
There are, of course, psychotherapies that claim to have been empirically tested. One such is Cognitive Therapy, also known as Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy (CBT), developed in the 1970s by Aaron T. Beck. Beck, a doctor who had a psychoanalytic practice, was frustrated by the slow progress of his patients. His attempt to find a more effective and rapid therapeutic approach resulted in CBT, essentially a method that identifies and helps a person to correct specific errors in distorted thoughts that produce negative or painful feelings. The techniques and strategies employed over a comparatively brief period of treatment were effectively employed with apparently enduring results in such situations as anger management, relaxation training, assertiveness training, and a variety of traumas. In effect CBT believes that the way we perceive situations influences how we feel emotionally. If we react positively, we feel happy; if we react negatively, we feel sad and discouraged. When people are
