There are apparently now more counsellors in Britain than there are members of the Armed Forces. Some observers, such as Prof Frank Furedi, of Kent University, take a dim view of this, claiming that this army of therapists is seeking to redefine normal experiences and emotions as being stressful or damaging.
No doubt he has a point. But it could be argued that the rising number of therapists is an appropriate response to the previously unfilled needs of the many with depression, anxiety and other psychological afflictions that used to be met, often inexpertly, by the family doctor. Certainly, therapists are the bulwark of our practice, and their sympathy and robust good sense are indispensable.
The problem arises with those therapists who maintain that most psychological disturbance can be explained by some hidden trauma in the past, which must be brought to the surface and "worked through". The concept is a potent one but, no matter how many times it is shown to be harmful nonsense, it keeps returning in another guise.
The dreadful Mr Freud started it with his notions of repressed infantile sexuality. Then, starting in the 1980s, came the epidemic of "recovered memories", where, every year in Britain and America, hundreds of troubled women (mostly) remembered, while in therapy, having been seduced, traumatised or raped, usually by their father but sometimes by brothers, uncles or other male friends of the family.
This not only had a catastrophic effect on those accused, but the "victims" caught in this web of lies and deceit became ever more psychologically disturbed.
Thankfully, and not before time, in 1998 Sydney Brandon, professor of psychiatry at Leicester University, destroyed the credibility of the concept of recovered memories in a devastating report commissioned by the Royal College of Psychiatrists.
Now it has reappeared again, this time under the auspices of, amazingly, the Church of England. In a policy document published last year, Protecting All God's Children, the Church, whether from naivety or stupidity, has endorsed the bible of the recovered memory fanatics, The Courage to Heal, as an "important and useful book".
Its insights include the claim that "if you think you were abused, and your life shows the symptoms, then you were". It also encourages so-called survivors of recovered memory syndrome to engage in "pleasurable fantasies of murder and castration against those who have hurt them so terribly" (I kid you not).
There is also a strong Church of England involvement in the Trauma and Abuse Group (TAG), whose chairman, Mike Fisher, is executive director of the Christian Counselling Service. TAG promotes the theory that people develop multiple personalities in response to "repeated and overwhelming childhood trauma, especially sexual and physical abuse" - a theory which has been discredited by, among others, Prof Howard Merskey of the University of Western Ontario (The Persistence of Folly: A Critical Examination of Dissociative Identity Disorder, The Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, September 2004).
The group's forthcoming conference, to be held in Derby in April, features a contribution from a therapist who has apparently worked for six years with survivors of satanic rituals who, she claims, are forced "to persecute other children and animals during ceremonies". Meanwhile, Mike Fisher urges the necessity to "keep a balance between demonstrating the unconditional love of Christ and professional good practice".
No doubt the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, will be seeking more details from the British False Memory Society (BFMS), which has just published an excellent booklet, Counselling or Quackery? (£6.75 plus p&p), providing an insider's view of the consequences of these harmful theories.