In French-speaking Quebec, implantation of behaviour therapy in psychiatric hospitals has been difficult because psychiatrists' training was and still is almost exclusively based on psychoanalytic theory. For this reason, many psychotherapists do not use the knowledge derived from laboratory experiments and only rely on their clinical judgement. Prejudiced by their professional identity, many psychiatrists believe that behaviorists manipulate and control patients, mechanize therapy, deny the importance of interpersonal relationships and only use punitive techniques.
After refuting these arguments, the author describes the practical difficulties encountered when implanting behaviour therapy in a psychoanalytic milieu, as well as the advantages of a better understanding between these two schools, which might lead to psychiatry becoming more scientific, more human and closer to daily reality.
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