On Building Walls

Heatherington et al. (2012) document a growing trend toward exclusive training in CBT and the exclusion of other orientations from programs' faculty (and probably their student body as well). This trend will restrict the growth of knowledge in clinical psychology and make it difficult, if not impossible, for students to learn a variety of theoretical orientations, research methods, and important developments such as psychotherapy integration. Psychology is being treated, prematurely, as though it has achieved a paradigmatic status when there are no data to justify this inclination. Although it often is presented as science, it is poor science with a limited view of methodology and a lack of response to data that suggest that orientation and technique do not contribute much to psychotherapy outcome, and there is little difference between approaches to psychotherapy.