Review of The Heroic Client
Barry Duncan and Scott Miller are with Marc Hubble directors of The Institute for the Study of Therapeutic Change (...). These people play an important role in improving and renewing therapy. In this book, the authors explain how therapy has for too long been been neglecting, ignoring, and depersonalizing clients, by its over-emphasis on methods and techniques, by following the medical model, by its emphasis on pathology, by hegemony of biological approaches, and so on. The authors first debunk the myths of: PSYCHIATRIC DIAGNOSIS: a) it lacks reliability, b) it lacks validity, c) it puts the blame on the client, and d) it is often motivated by self-interest, fueled by greed, and blows with the winds of fashion, DRUG TREATMENT OF MENTAL PROBLEMS: a) they work no better than therapy in the short term, b) changes brought about by medication are less likely to persist over time, c) there often are severe adverse effects, d) drug studies often look better than they are because they rate im...