ABSTRACT
Treatments for mental disorders are as old as the recorded history of medicine, and probably older. Most early interventions were based either on magical ideas of manipulating the mind, or on physical restraint, which was sometimes cruelly applied, and is well documented, for example, in the history of the Bethlem Hospital in London. The fact that Freud the psychoanalyst was also a doctor and a specialist in neuroscience allowed him to develop theories that were consistent with what was then known about the ways in which the brain functions. This link with biological knowledge remains important for the place of psychodynamic psychotherapy in medical practice. Psychoanalysis can only ever be available to relatively few people, and the original technique has been modified to offer shorter and less intensive treatments to the many people who seek psychotherapy. The recent emphasis on evidence-based practice in medicine has been a further spur to evaluate existing methods and to define effective techniques.
