The psychotherapist's contribution to the treatment process

Abstract

It is probably safe to say that there is nothing that has not been done to try to help people who have what is called “mental illness”–soft music and scalding in hot water, snake pits and electric current through the brain, stinging showers, starvation, milk diets, tranquilizing drugs and free association and casting out of devils and good hard work–but none can yet be said to be truly effective. Psychotherapy, especially since the days of Freud, has come to mean a treatment that is made up mainly of talk, a verbal exchange between the patient and the person who is trying to help him. With the development of this kind of treatment, it has been increasingly recognized that psychotherapy is characterized not only by its techniques, but also by the personal relationship between the patient and his therapist. This being so, the therapist himself, his background, attitudes, experiences, and personality must be put under the microscope for careful scrutiny and analysis if valid knowledge about how to treat mental illness is to be obtained.

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