Do shrinks believe their patients?

There's another thread about how Brian Williams could have misremembered being shot down/not being shot down in Iraq and how memories can change over time. Broader question: Do psychotherapists believe what their patients tell them, or do they start with the premise that the patient is mistaken or lying? This goes back to the "memory recovery" business of some years ago, in which therapists were persuading patients that they had been sexually abused when they apparently hadn't been. But that could work the other way too: Suppose the patient really was abused in childhood, and the shrink doubts it? Does the process of therapy depend on the therapist knowing the true facts, or are the patient's own beliefs what matter most, or is the goal for the patient to see the world the way the therapist sees it, or what?

via International Skeptics Forum http://ift.tt/16Js7eP