I recently received a flyer advertising a book that purports to describe "the power therapy of the next century" (emphasis in the original). I will not name this "therapy," for reasons that will become evident in a moment. Actually, I know nothing about the therapy, other than the hype contained in the flyer. However, what really bothered me about the advertisement was the quote by someone who had reviewed the therapy, and it was the quote that really got to me. Let me requote it here (removing the name of the "therapy"; nor do I mention the well-known newsletter this quote was extracted from; emphasis added):
If it had been a horse race, ....the [therapy] contingent would have won, hands down. Requiring virtually nothing in the way of personal interaction, [the therapy] can bypass all that tedious therapeutic business of joining, emphathy, history-taking, reprocessing, and the like, and zero in on the problem immediately at hand. With 10 minute treatments not at all unusual....
Yoiks! Give me a break! Come on, folks, is this really what we want? To "bypass all that tedious therapeutic business of joining, empathy, history-taking"? This is scarey. These people obviously believe this will sell their book. If you receive one of these flyers, and you believe as I do that this is exactly contrary to what we want to achieve, perhaps you might consider returning it with some sort of comment to that effect. Afterall, this may be the age of short-term therapy, but let's not get carried away. The emphasis should still be on therapy rather than short-term.
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