Before dealing critically with the present status of research in this field we may consider briefly certain of the difficulties facing a research worker in this area. The most obvious source of difficulty is the presence of various systematic approaches to psychotherapy-psychoanalytic, nondirective and so on. Each of these points of view may become proliferated by defections from the ranks. In addition, there are the minor unorthodoxies and individual idiosyncracies within the fold which still further complicate the issue. One cannot speak of the "effects of psychotherapy" in a bald unqualified fashion, but research must be framed in terms of a particular approach to psychotherapy with attention to the particular individual nuances given by the specific practioners concerned.
Another difficulty, which is intimately related to that just mentioned, is the relative lack, both qualitative and quantitative, of research in this field. One reason for this is that many psychotherapists do relatively little research. This is not unusual in the practice of a clinical art as witness the fact that approximately 90 percent or more of physicians do no research. The practice of psychotherapy is, after all, not intended as a scientific experiment. Its aim is prevention and cure by any available method, empiric or otherwise. But this immersion in practice is only a part of the picture. Whether verbalized or not, many psychotherapists act as if psychotherapy were beyond the ken of scientific research. The psychodynamic ebb and flow, the cross currents, and the storms and the calms seem to occur on such a vast scale as to make them withdraw from charting their deep mysteries even though they swim in their waters. Sensitivity to the nuances of a psychodynamic relationship is not necessarily correlated either in terms of training or of temperament with ability to carry on research on this topic. Then, too, the characteristics of a psychotherapist, the deep identification, the critical empathy, the desire to succor the person in difficulties are not necessarily characteristics which serve to further research aims. I might even say that a certain obtuseness in these regards is sometimes needed for research planning and production in this field. Fools with a research bent rush in where therapeutically sensitive angels fear to tread! It might be well to add that