[The future of psychotherapy].

The development of psychotherapy is outlined very briefly. The dangers which arise from the pluralism of methods are shown. A uniform basic education in medicine is striven for, covering both the biological and the psychosocial domains.

[Psychotherapy of depression].

A distinct separation between a pathological grief reaction and "psychosomatic" depressive syndromes is suggested, which would offer the possibility of selecting a specific psychotherapeutic method. The so-called regrief therapy (Volkan) is recommended for the treatment of the pathological grief reaction and supportive and expressive psychoanalytical methods for the "psychosomatic" depressive syndromes.

The psychotherapist's fear of empirical research.

The reasons for the reluctance of psychotherapists against empirical research are the following: (1) psychotherapy is a 'hermeneutic' process which cannot be measured (basic argument); (2) empirical research interferes in the process (technical argument); (3) it contradicts the specific private working contract of psychotherapy (ethical argument); (4) in comparative psychotherapy research we compare not systems, but individual therapists (personal argument), and (5) in many institutions, care has a higher priority than documentation (pragmatic argument). These arguments are mainly rationalizations. Empirical research is necessary for the survival of psychotherapy as a respected discipline in medicine.