There is that little Communist (Marxist-Leninist-Freudian-Reichian) group I like and I went to one of their lectures about Sigmund Freud once. And after the lecture, I asked about what Freudian psychoanalysis could actually do, like what are its possibilities, what its limitations.
And the guy said that psychoanalysis only works when you are relatively young, healthy and normally attractive. Because people who are too old to successfully replace their old "learning history" with a new "learning history" cannot be helped anymore. Same with people who are crippled, disfigured, extremely ugly or oppressed etc. cannot be helped anymore. He said that in his opinion that doesn't justify mocking psychoanalysis, claiming it to be helpful only for those lucky few who don't need any help, because there obviously are a lot of people who have acceptable starting positions and yet ruin their life, become neurotic and crazy, etc.
So, anyway, with that depressing answer, he gained my respect and I started to read a bit more about psychoanalysis, simply out of interest. Most modern psychotherapy however simply seems to be about selling drugs and about ignoring the social disease and only trying to sell drugs to deal with the symptoms. A guy I went to high-school with and whom I met later, went to a psychotherapist who adviced him to go see a prostitute, tho. Which in some cases might be a good advice, I guess, at least if validation isn't that important for you.