ABSTRACT
The word comes from two roots meaning ‘soul’ and ‘healing’. The first therapists of ancient Greece were temple helpers who sat with people and prepared them for the spiritual experiences which would transform their illnesses, either by curing them, or by enabling them to see a purpose in them, or by making death less frightening. Psychotherapy has a history and a tradition which is quite specific. Over the centuries there have been many attempts to deal with mental distress of one kind and another, from the physical to the spiritual. The International Congress on Hypnotism took place in Paris in 1889, at the time of the Universal Exhibition in honour of the hundredth anniversary of the French Revolution. It attracted huge crowds and was attended by journalists from 31 countries. The field of psychotherapy was quickly dominated by psychoanalysis, so much so that even today people tend to think of psychotherapy as essentially psychoanalytic.
