riously mixed in the popular
psychotherapy of the day, and too few recognize that the real meaning of
mind is an entirely different one in these two propositions.

Of course the one or the other of these two elements prevails in the
systematic treatises on the subject; the realistic one in those written
by the psychiatrists, the idealistic one in those written by clergymen
or Christian Scientists. The literature indeed is almost entirely
supplied from these two quarters: and yet it is evident that neither the
one nor the other party can give to the problem its most natural
setting. The student of mental diseases naturally emphasizes the
abnormal features of the situation, and thus brings the
psychotherapeutic process too much into the neighborhood of pathology.
Psychotherapy became in such hands essentially a study of hypnotism,
with especial interest in its relation to hysteria and similar diseases.
The much more essential relation of psychotherapy to the normal mental
life, the relation of suggestion and hypnotism to the normal functions
seemed too often neglected. Whoever wants to influence the mind in the
interest of the patient, must in the first place be in intimate contact
with psychology. On the other hand, the minister's spiritual interest
brings the facts nearer to religion than they really are. That a
suggestion to get rid of toothache, or to sleep the next night, is given
by a minister, does not constitute it as a religious suggestion. If the
belief in religion simply lies alongside of the belief in most trivial
effects, and both are applied in the same way for curing the sick, it is
evident that not the spiritual meaning of religion is responsible for
the cure, but the psychological process of believing. But if that is the
case, it is clear that here again the psychologist, and not the
moralist, will give the correct account of the real process involved.
In short, it is psychology, psychology in its scientific modern form,
which has to furnish the basis for a full understanding of
psychotherapy. From psychology it cannot be difficult to bridge over to
the medical interests, on the one side, to the idealistic ones on the
other side.

Our task here is, therefore, to lay a broad psychological foundation. We
must carefully inquire how the modern psychologist looks on mental life
and how the inner experiences appear from such a psychological
standpoint. The first chapters of this volume may appear like a long,