The present article rebuts recently voiced assertions that the practise of psychotherapy is not a medical matter. Clarification is offered for the present confusion about what should and what should not be considered to constitute psychotherapy. It is shown how social trends and political-financial interests have been used exploitively to obfuscate the issue. Attention is called to the dangers inherent in the current tendency to institutionalise the profession and bring it under central control, i.e. that it undermines the sense of individual responsibility; that it leads to rigidity of opinion regarding theory and treatment and thus to an impoverishment in the expansion of knowledge; and that the system of control by reporting is not only ethically unsound, but in fact incompatible with effectiveness in this field of work. It is argued that psychotherapeutic activity can remain viable only so long as the independent practitioner can continue to function.