Psychotherapy | Page 2

the psychotherapeutic treatment of any case which has not a certain scientific interest for me, and of the many hundreds whom I have helped in the laboratory, no one ever had to pay anything. Thus my practical work has strictly the character of laboratory research.
The chief aim of this book is twofold. It is a negative one: I want to counteract the misunderstandings which overflood the whole field, especially by the careless mixing of mental and moral influence. And a positive one: I want to strengthen the public feeling that the time has come when every physician should systematically study psychology, the normal in the college years and the abnormal in the medical school. This demand of medical education cannot be postponed any longer. The aim of the book is not to fight the Emmanuel Church Movement, or even Christian Science or any other psychotherapeutic tendency outside of the field of scientific medicine. I see the element of truth in all of them, but they ought to be symptoms of transition. Scientific medicine should take hold of psychotherapeutics now or a most deplorable disorganization will set in, the symptoms of which no one ought to overlook to-day.
HUGO M��NSTERBERG.
HARVARD UNIVERSITY, March 20, 1909.

CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. INTRODUCTION 1
PART I
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL BASIS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY
II. THE AIM OF PSYCHOLOGY 9
III. MIND AND BRAIN 27
IV. PSYCHOLOGY AND MEDICINE 55
V. SUGGESTION AND HYPNOTISM 85
VI. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 125
PART II
THE PRACTICAL WORK OF PSYCHOTHERAPY
VII. THE FIELD OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 158
VIII. THE GENERAL METHODS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 184
IX. THE SPECIAL METHODS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 212
X. THE MENTAL SYMPTOMS 239
XI. THE BODILY SYMPTOMS 297
PART III
THE PLACE OF PSYCHOTHERAPY
XII. PSYCHOTHERAPY AND THE CHURCH 319
XIII. PSYCHOTHERAPY AND THE PHYSICIAN 347
XIV. PSYCHOTHERAPY AND THE COMMUNITY 370

I
INTRODUCTION
Psychotherapy is the practice of treating the sick by influencing the mental life. It stands at the side of physicotherapy, which attempts to cure the sick by influencing the body, perhaps with drugs and medicines, or with electricity or baths or diet.
Psychotherapy is sharply to be separated from psychiatry, the treatment of mental diseases. Of course to a certain degree, mental illness too, is open to mental treatment; but certainly many diseases of the mind lie entirely beyond the reach of psychotherapy, and on the other hand psychotherapy may be applied also to diseases which are not mental at all. That which binds all psychotherapeutic efforts together into unity is the method of treatment. The psychotherapist must always somehow set levers of the mind in motion and work through them towards the removal of the sufferer's ailment; but the disturbances to be treated may show the greatest possible variety and may belong to mind or body.
Treatment of diseases by influence on the mind is as old as human history, but it has attained at various times very different degrees of importance. There is no lack of evidence that we have entered into a period in which an especial emphasis will be laid on the too long neglected psychical factor. This new movement is probably only in its beginning and the loudness with which it presents itself to-day is one of the many indications of its immaturity. Whether it will be a blessing or a danger, whether it will really lead forward in a lasting way, or whether it will soon demand a reaction, will probably depend in the first place on the soberness and thoroughness of the discussion. If the movement is carried on under the control of science, it may yield lasting results. If it keeps the features of dilettanteism and prefers association with the antiscientific tendencies, it is pre-destined to have a spasmodic character and ultimately to be harmful.
The chaotic character of psychotherapy in this first decade of the twentieth century can be easily understood. It results from the fact that in our period one great wave of civilization is sinking and a new wave rising, while the one has not entirely disappeared and the other is still far from its height. The history of civilization has shown at all times a wavelike alternation between realism and idealism, that is, between an interest in that which is, and an interest in that which ought to be. In the realistic periods, the study of facts, especially of the facts of nature, is prevalent; in idealistic periods, history and literature appeal to the world. In realistic periods, technique enjoys its triumphs; in idealistic periods, art and religion prevail. Such a realistic movement lies behind us. It began with the incomparable development of physics, chemistry, and biology, in the middle of the last century, and it brought with it the achievements of modern engineering and medicine. We are still fully under the influence of this gigantic movement and its real achievements will never leave us; and yet this realistic wave is ebbing to-day and a new period of idealism is