The author discusses psychotherapy’s state of the art in the year of Freud’s 150th anniversary. He raises the issues of legitimacy, efficacy and institutionalization of therapeutic practice and analyses a number of problems in psychotherapy studies. The author reviews critically some attempts at constructing a «general theory» of therapy. He discusses a new approach, interactive-analysis, and describes particular features of therapeutic community using the notion of «ideoballic community». He exposes many contradictions in both therapeutic knowledge and professional community.