The author's reflections on the evolution of psychotherapy in the last decades of the 20th century depart from an article on community mental health and psychotherapy written in 1970 by the Dutch social psychiatrist Kees Trimbos. As promoted by Trimbos, psychotherapy in the Netherlands was increasingly integrated in regional centers for community mental health care. In the eighties psychotherapy was characterized by a growing professionalisation but this was overshadowed in the nineties by the medicalisation of mental health care. The author predicts psychotherapy will disappear as a 'regular profession' but will play a role as a catalyser in a movement for a more humane society.