27

IV. PSYCHOLOGY AND MEDICINE 55

V. SUGGESTION AND HYPNOTISM 85

VI. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 125

PART II

THE PRACTICAL WORK OF PSYCHOTHERAPY

VII. THE FIELD OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 158

VIII. THE GENERAL METHODS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 184

IX. THE SPECIAL METHODS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY 212

X. THE MENTAL SYMPTOMS 239

XI. THE BODILY SYMPTOMS 297

PART III

THE PLACE OF PSYCHOTHERAPY

XII. PSYCHOTHERAPY AND THE CHURCH 319

XIII. PSYCHOTHERAPY AND THE PHYSICIAN 347

XIV. PSYCHOTHERAPY AND THE COMMUNITY 370

I

INTRODUCTION

Psychotherapy is the practice of treating the sick by influencing the
mental life. It stands at the side of physicotherapy, which attempts to
cure the sick by influencing the body, perhaps with drugs and medicines,
or with electricity or baths or diet.

Psychotherapy is sharply to be separated from psychiatry, the treatment
of mental diseases. Of course to a certain degree, mental illness too,
is open to mental treatment; but certainly many diseases of the mind lie
entirely beyond the reach of psychotherapy, and on the other hand
psychotherapy may be applied also to diseases which are not mental at
all. That which binds all psychotherapeutic efforts together into unity
is the method of treatment. The psychotherapist must always somehow set
levers of the mind in motion and work through them towards the removal
of the sufferer's ailment; but the disturbances to be treated may show
the greatest possible variety and may belong to mind or body.

Treatment of diseases by influence on the mind is as old as human
history, but it has attained at various times very different degrees of
importance. There is no lack of evidence that we have entered into a
period in which an especial emphasis will be laid on the too long
neglected psychical factor. This new movement is probably only in its
beginning and the loudness with which it presents itself to-day is one
of the many indications of its immaturity. Whether it will be a blessing
or a da