title: The many secure knowledge bases of psychotherapy.
abstract: Psychotherapeutic practice, while it has benefited greatly from scientific research, rests on many further secure epistemic foundations. In the present article, this thesis is argued in two stages. First, a brief review of some elementary epistemological findings is presented. In this review, the generally acknowledged degree of certainty attributed to different knowledge sources, and thus the confidence with which we may believe and act upon them, are recounted. Second, an extended analysis of the ways in which each of these knowledge sources enter into the practice of psychotherapy is developed. In the end, what is proffered here is a demonstration that well conducted psychotherapy is an activity whose judgments and decisions rest on many secure foundations.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Illinois State University, Normal, IL 61790-4620, USA. rmbergn@ilstu.edu
authors.forename: Raymond M
authors.initials: RM
authors.lastname: Bergner
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D019359:Knowledge; D011574:Psychoanalytic Theory; D011613:Psychotherapy / Q000379:methods*