ABSTRACT
Physicians in ancient Greece acted in accordance with psychotherapeutic principles that sound astonishingly modern. They advocate ongoing personal counselling from expert individuals, health-supportive behaviour, striving for clarity of mind, and emotional equilibrium, plus acceptance that life is a creative challenge. Modern treatment techniques develop this traditional cultural practice further and attempt to substantiate it in scientific terms. Another prominent psychotherapy researcher who called for the integration of different methods is Jerome Frank. In Persuasion and Healing, the conclusion he draws from decades of research and therapeutic practice is that psychotherapy should be understood as the complex art of verbal exchange and understanding. Of course, psychotherapy is a highly complex field requiring a great deal of experiential knowledge. Psychotherapists are faced with a huge range of psychic illnesses, from minor adjustment disorders to severe anxieties, depressions, personality disorders, and psychoses.
