My letter to Therapy Today on the validity of psychotherapeutic interventions, which was published in the May 2015 edition, outside the prism of ‘evidence base’ and randomised control trials (RCTs) in public sector commissioning. This followed an article by the chair of BACP in the March edition of the journal (page 46) in which Andrew Reeves made a passionate plea for qualities of life and non-RCTs when assessing the effectiveness of psychotherapeutic interventions. The issue of how to prove effectiveness may become even more pertinent given the recent change of government when the squeeze on public sector spending might take on a new momentum in the next few years.