The values of modern psychotherapy: development and crisis

Abstract

Modern psycotherapy is based on three fundamental normative principles: to fight pain, to favour free-expresion of the self, to research the truth. The first of these principles comes from the Hippocratic tradition, the other two have become part of the nineteenth century medicine whith the birth of modern psycotherapy. The present development has evidenced the contraddictions betwen these principles: the crisis of the principle about the expression of the self and the need of a better definition of the principles about the research of truth. A short history of this development and his crisis will be presented together with an hypothesis on a possible solution.