Mind Games: American Culture and the Birth of Psychotherapy

Eric Caplan

Published by University of California Press 1998

Mind Games

American Culture and the Birth of Psychotherapy

Eric Caplan
Edited by: Eric Caplan

In the series Medicine and Society

https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520927025

Overview
Contents

About this book

Eric Caplan's fascinating exploration of Victorian culture in the United States shatters the myth of Freud's seminal role in the creation of American psychotherapy. Resurrecting the long-buried "prehistory" of American mental therapeutics, Mind Games tells the remarkable story of how a widely assorted group of actors—none of them hailing from Vienna or from any other European city—compelled a reluctant medical profession to accept a new role for the mind in medicine. By the time Freud first set foot on American soil in 1909, as Caplan demonstrates, psychotherapy was already integrally woven into the fabric of American culture and medicine.

What came to be known as psychotherapy emerged in the face of considerable opposition, much—indeed most—of which was generated by the medical profession itself. Caplan examines the contentious interplay within the American medical community, as well as between American physicians and their lay rivals, who included faith-healers, mind-curists, Christian Scientists, and Protestant ministers. These early practitioners of alternative medicine ultimately laid the groundwork for a distinctive and much heralded American type of psychotherapy. Its grudging acceptance by both medical elites and rank and file physicians signified their understanding that reliance on physical therapies to treat nervous and mental symptoms compromised their capacity to treat—and compete—effectively in a rapidly expanding mental-medical marketplace. Mind Games shows how psychotherapy came to occupy its central position in mainstream American culture.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	I
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	IX
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	XI
1 Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
12 Trains, Brains, and Sprains: Railway Spine and the Origins of Psychoneuroses Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	11
3 Avoiding Psychotherapy: Neurasthenia and the Limits of Somatic Therapy Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	37
4 Inventing Psychotherapy: The American Mind Cure Movement, 1830-190 0 Alexander Wilder and Lewellys Barker Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	61
5 Flirting with Psychotherapy: Somatic Intransigence and the "Advanced Guard" Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	89
6 Embracing Psychotherapy: The Emmanuel Movement and the American Medical Profession Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	117
7 Conclusion Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	149
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	153
Selected Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	209
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	237

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: University of California Press
Audience: College/higher education;
Pages
- Main content: 246
Keywords: Psychology; General

eBook

Published: August 31, 1998
ISBN: 9780520927025

Paperback

Planned Publication: August 31, 1998
ISBN: 9780520229037