Experimental psychopathology: From laboratory studies to clinical practice

Recently, David Barlow (2004), a pioneer in the field of anxiety disorders, has proposed that psychologists should abandon the concept of psychotherapy and rather use the one of “psychological treatment”. The provoking idea behind this proposal is that the concept of psychotherapy, relying on the notion of “therapeutic school” should be discarded by professional psychologists because it relies too much on conceptions based on pre-scientific models. Barlow (2004) insists that, today, psychology as an empirical science has gathered sufficient knowledge and know-how to found clinical practice. It is no longer necessary to rely on pre-scientific theories. Further, Barlow’s perspective opens clinical practice to the entire field of psychology, i.e. to the advances accomplished by research on emotion, cognition, learning, development, etc.