Harmful Help

Psychological treatment and conversation therapy are intended to reduce human suffering. When someone is seeking help, it is supposed that a professional therapist pays attention to what is being said, listens to all of it, and gives advice or suggestions on how to think, feel or act differently. It may seem paradoxical to claim that such psychological treatment, provided with the best of intentions, should have negative effects. How can interventions aimed at healing increase the patient's suffering? How can something that is designed to help, end up being harmful?

This book examines situations, places, therapists or points in time when treatment defeats its own purpose – that is, where it would have been better not to do anything. At the same time the authors suggest possible steps towards a culture of greater openness and more reliable mental health care.