FREUD'S METHOD OF PSYCHOTHERAPY
L. Pierce Clark
1908
Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease
389 occurring during the recent epidemic which had been loosely characterized as an epidemic of poliomyelitis. In this epidemic, as was well known, many cases appeared which, under ordinary circumstances, would never have been classified in the category of acute anterior poliomyelitis. PSYCHOTHERAPY By C. L. Dana, M.D. Dr. Dana said he was conscious of a serious responsibility in bringing before this society the subject of psychotherapeutics. One reason is that the subject, according to certain
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... Boston observers, when mentioned to New York neurologists, arouses not thought but emotion, not intellectual consideration, but emotional explosion. Some subjects are so essentially trivial, and so beyond the realm of sense and scientific treatment, as to deserve this attitude, and invite only this emotional complex. Psychotherapy is not, however, quite deserving of such treatment, for if it is not worthy of scientific study it demands attention as a social question. There is already ■ a wave of public interest in the matter, which we at least must watch if we take no definite attitude toward it. It seems as if a certain large group of minor psychoses are to be taken in hand by the clergy, cooperating with medical men, and it is seriously proposed to have psychotherapeutics a part of the religious work of our churches. Already centers of this work exist in Boston, Chicago and this city. Perhaps the best attitude to take towards this movement is aloofness, believing that it will die out. His own feeling, however, is that the best way would be to take a decided position against it, certainly as a general measure. We can reasonably assert that the care of the sick is safest in the hands of those trained for the purpose. But if we say this, will we not have to assert also that medical men are using the forces of therapeutics, and using them more skilfully and effectively than clergymen, or non-medical therapeutists can do. Dr. Dana is persuaded that this is not now the case. We do use psychotherapeutics in our daily work in various formal and informal ways, but in the casual work of the office, it is not always possible, or at least it is not always the practice to bring out to the utmost the power of hopeful attention, or to dislodge the demon of the sub¬ conscious effectively. By studying and analyzing the different methods of psychotherapeutics, we may be able to use them better, and to show, its limitations, for they are very great, and its possibilities, for they are important. THE REEDUCATION METHOD OF DUBOIS
doi:10.1097/00005053-190806000-00006
fatcat:myy3n6rahfafph47di2viwgqka