Most of the reasons for therapy’s success are simply unknown. This should keep therapists humble. The biggest factor which therapists can influence at all is the quality of the relationship. The relationship may be experienced as healing, even when therapy doesn’t measure up as “effective” at removing problems.

How do you deliver ‘placebo therapy’ to a client? By being deliberately hostile? Quantative scientific methods may not be the best ways to measure psychotherapy outcomes. But those who have the power and the money are increasingly using research results to legitimise a few techniques which are easy to measure, to the detriment of clients and therapists.

In a psychological experiment, jam-tasting experts and students more or less agreed on the best tasting jam — until the students were asked to analyse their preferences. Then they promptly forgot how they actually percieved the jam and started thinking too much.

What ever happened to the search for truth and understanding the universe? These days, much of what’s done in the name of science has more to do with politics, the securing of grants for educational institutions, and the advancement of a company’s products.

Does consciousness exist along a continuum, beginning in the simplest forms of life, rather than being an event which springs out of nowhere once a certain level of evolution has been achieved?

If we don’t come to our senses and find the right balance fairly soon, nature is likely to do it for us.

You don’t ever deceive yourself, do you? Of course not! Me neither.