ABSTRACT
In 1904, Jean Camus and Philippe Pagniez presented a history of psychotherapy. They differentiated between the conscious manifestations of psychotherapy and its unconscious use. They argued that both modalities went back to antiquity and arranged their history thematically under four headings: psychotherapy by remedies, by which they meant 'suggestion by medicinal therapeutics'; psychotherapy by 'the marvellous'; psychotherapy by hypnotism and suggestion; and psychotherapy by persuasion. In the twentieth century, psychotherapy was an ontology-making practice. For Bernheim, the practice of psychotherapy was an outpatient medical procedure that used existing medical nosologies. For May, practised in an unreflective manner, psychotherapy could simply serve to make matters worse by simply reflecting 'the fragmentation of the culture', and hence 'structuralizing neurosis rather than curing it'. Thus, psychotherapies have played critical roles in fostering conceptions of psychological disorder as well as of psychological well-being and identity itself.
