THERAPY AND POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGYhe developed at the end of the nineteenth century. Freud, in turn, was
inspired by his mentor, the neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot. The latter
had a particular interest in those patients at the Salpêtrière Hospital in
Paris who displayed neurological symptoms (such as paralysis) without
seeming to have anything physically wrong with them. Whereas other
medics tended to dismiss such patients as malingerers, Charcot took
them seriously and attempted to treat their “hysteria” with hypnosis.
Western psychotherapy’s roots actually go back even further than
Freud and Charcot. For example, in the late eighteenth century, another
physician based at the Salpêtrière, Philippe Pinel, was interested in the
psychological causes of mental illness, such as bereavement and stress.
His approach to treatment was founded on kindness and discussing
patients’ problems with them – a revolutionary idea at the time. Today
Pinel is considered by many to be the “father of modern psychiatry”.
In recent decades a division has emerged between so-called “empiri-
cally supported” therapeutic approaches, such as Cognitive Behavioural
Therapy (see p.348), and other approaches. Indeed, some psychologists
like David Barlow, founder and Director Emeritus of the Center for
Anxiety and Related Disorders at Boston University, have called for a
distinction to be made between evidence-based psychological treat-
ments for treating psychopathology, and psychotherapy, which he
says is for personal growth, happiness and improving relationships.
Speaking in 2006 at a conference of the Division of Clinical Psychology
in the UK, Barlow described psychotherapy as a “noble undertaking”,
but warned that “it’s harmful to confuse it with what psychologists do
in a health setting”.
PSYCHODYNAMIC THERAPIES
Psychoanalysis, the most famous approach to psychotherapy, is based on
the idea that psychological problems are largely caused by unresolved
mental and emotional conflicts, many of which bubble away beneath the
level of conscious awareness. These unconscious processes are consid-
ered to be dynamic, and any therapeutic approach that attempts to
resolve or modify these processes is a form of psychodynamic therapy.
One key psychoanalytic technique is free association. This involves
the analysand – the formal term for a person undergoing psychoa-
nalysis – uttering thoughts aloud as they spontaneously come to mind.
Meanwhile, the analyst provides interpretations of these utterances to
try to help uncover any underlying mental conflicts, so that they can be