Heh, just found this thread.
I remember watching an episode with an agoraphobic woman. A lot of what the Speakmans did was perfectly sensible and obvious - nothing that any other qualified therapist wouldn't do. They talked through the trigger (which she happened to have) of her phobia, they explained the nature of her fear, the fact there was no real danger to a panic attack, etc. They did a bit of mild exposure therapy: a walk around the corner. Then they did some more difficult exposure therapy - a drive to a local church for a relative's christening. On the way, the woman starting panicking in the car and asked to go home. So they stopped the car and talked to her and waited... and lo and behold, once the initial panic had passed and they had waited long enough for the adrenaline to subside, she managed to get to the church after all! Well, duh...
No magic here. Nothing special. Nothing to convince me of their 'amazing' abilities.
At the end of the program, the update told viewers that the woman was now 'enjoying walks around the park with friends and family'. Basically, they had given her enough information and exposure therapy to be enable her to attend a local park with people she feels safe with. How's that for a 'miracle cure'! That's what they're famous for, right?
The thing that made them repellent was how, in order to motivate her to take on the exposure therapy, they made her feel worthless and completely to blame for her problem. They told her that she was throwing away her relationships with friends and family, and to illustrate the point, made her physically throw photos of friends and family in the bin. Some might call this 'tough love'. I call it enormously unethical.
Seriously, imagine Agoraphobic Pam enduring a life with Doesn't Understand Dave, who keeps telling her she needs to toughen up and pull herself together. She explains to him many times that her disorder is not as simple as that, and after some months of this he comes to accept that this approach isn't helping her in the slightest. But then Dave sees the Speakmans on the tellybox - oho! His bullying approach was valid after all! He redoubles his efforts, because it's clearly a sensible way to motivate Pam! Never again can Pam convince him that being tough with her doesn't work: it was good enough for the miracle-worker Speakmans, after all! Gee, thanks, Speakmans, for making Pam's life, and hundreds like her, that little bit more miserable.
So... widely practised and utterly obvious treatment coupled with unethically forcing this woman to agree to face her fears by convincing her what a terrible person she would be for not facing them. And let's not forget the self-aggrandising 'miracle-workers' nonsense!
Yeah, not a fan.