Clinical Psychology

clinical demonstration with hypnotized patients. As
a matter of fact, he believed that only patients with
hysteria could be hypnotized. However, he was
probably investigating hypnosis rather than hysteria.
Others, such as Hippolyte Bernheim and Pierre
Janet, were critical of Charcot’s work. Bernheim
felt that the symptoms of hysteria reflected nothing
more than suggestibility. Janet, on the other
hand, came to regard hysteria as a manifestation of
a“split personality”and also as a kind of hereditary
degeneration.
At about the same time, the momentous col-
laboration of Josef Breuer and Sigmund Freud
began. In the early 1880s, Breuer was treating a
young patient named“Anna O,”who was diag-
nosed with hysteria. Anna O’s treatment presented
many challenges but also led to theoretical break-
throughs that would influence psychotherapy prac-
tice for years to come. Breuer discussed the case
extensively with Freud, who became so interested

that he went to Paris to learn all that Charcot could

teach him about hysteria. To considerably shorten a

long story, in 1895, Breuer and Freud published

Studies on Hysteria. For a variety of reasons, the rela-

tionship between the two men subsequently

became quite strained. But their collaboration

served as the launching pad forpsychoanalysis, the

single most influential theoretical and treatment

development in the history of psychiatry and clini-

cal psychology.

The Advent of the Modern Era (1900–1919)

Reformers such as Clifford Beers have been

important in the history of clinical psychology.

Beers was hospitalized in the wake of several

severe depressions. While hospitalized, he passed

into a manic phase and began recording his experi-

ences in the hospital. When he was free of his

F I G U R E 2-2 Jean Charcot demonstrated with a patient called“Wit.”Although trained as a neurologist, Charcot
employed a psychosocial approach to explaining hysteria.

© Bettman/Corbis

40 CHAPTER 2