EVOLUTION OF A NEW TREATMENT

Press, Volume LXXXVIII, Issue 26869, 23 October 1952, Page 8

EVOLUTION OF A NEW TREATMENT

PSYCHO-THERAPY

■ [SpecioUV Written for “The Prest"!

IBV

NEMOI

When we 'find people using the term psycho-therapy, or medical psychology, many of us think of Sigmund Freud, the Viennese neurologist who devised the system theory and practice known as psycho-analysis. Long years before Freud, the fathers of church, in listening to the d »straugh( of their flock, as well as understanding physicians, suggestions of health and stre *J£* ’ were making effective use curative psychology. Freud s merit lay mainly in his discovery of a direct way into the storehouse of the deep mind which we term the sub-conscious. He began by placing his patients under hypnosis. In this state, with the help of a little suggestion, he could draw on the memories of past experiences which the patient, when awake, scarce realised he Then lYeud found that if his patient merely relaxed in an easy posture and expressed whatever thought or feeling came, the storehouse of memory would yield up its treasures almost as readily. Against hypnotism there has been much prejudice, besides objections on factual grounds tnai appear "to carry weight If, as some feel, the free association method or psycho-analysis be evil, then ranged beside hypnotism, it presents itself as distinctly the less so of the two. Like all of us, Freud was influenced by the current assumptions and philosophy of his day. He was under the shadow of evolutionary materialism. To those of a scientific bent the idea of an over-ruling Providence, working in and through the spirit of man, seemed to have been banished from the universe by Darwin and Huxley. Wallace and Haeckel. Some of us who are old enough can recall rather vividly how our natural curiosity about life ano its origin was frowned upon sternly by our “elders and betters.” We were made to feel, if not told in so many words, that even to think about matters sexual was a sin of the first order. When a powerful urge is thwarted and driven underground, as this often was, trouble vaguely referred to as “nervous” could hardly be avoided. With his basic view that man was just an evolved animal, Freud tried to help just such “nervous” folk. In consequence, the web of thought he spun to hold together the observed and well-known ways in which people thought and acted came, perhaps almost inevitably, to assume a sexual colouring. An Unfortunate Generalisation To look at human nature from a ; sexual viewpoint was to incur the ’ wrath of all those estimable folk ■ whom such a thing was “not ' done.” or even to be thought of. It was an unfortunate generalisation from i a philosophy and a professional ex- . perience both severely limited. Freud, however, had the courage to stand ■ erect against the full fury of the . storm tnat burst upon him. Rather than recant, he lost his .associates, • Adler. Jung and others who felt that * too loud and jarring a note had been I sounded qppn just that one of the r innumerable strings of the. human s harp. Alfred Adler saw that many of vs are hampered by weakness of body, mind or character. Helen Keller, for - example, rather than take her blindness and deafness lying down, strove to become one of the most attractive, best informed and most useful women of her time. Demosthenes, the stutterer* rested not until he was the

foremost orator of his day. Yet flesh blood and nerves often are too fr»ii to stand the strain thus thrust them. And so more grist far tC psycho-therapeutic mill. Jung. th. mystic, soared far out of reach rf Freudian mole.—too. high, indeed, for some of the traditional form, m religion, who, if forced to choose would prefer his outlook to that ot Adler or Freud. Deserted by these and other stat, warts, the Freudians, who feel the. have a prior claim to the term psycho, analysis, have closed their ranks ana built up a coherent set of upon which they seem able to fouiM an explanation for almost even obscure incident of life. From man. quarters they have been subjected to intense and destructive critical When, for example. Dr. Rudolf Allen a noted psychiatrist, has got throw* with them, nothing is left of tfiur philosophy but the tatters, and ver, little of their therapeutic save fragments that might be ascribed to age-old suggestion. Original Views Modified Starting as a Freudian, Dr. Kann Horney, of New York, has beta impelled by her ripe experience, bk»« and more to modify her ortgtut points of view. She has. with pe. haps greater success than any other worker in this field, come to appn. hend the true nature of "nervom disease,” or neurosis. With a mud of the highest synthetic power, g* has brought together all the vast bm. ley of details that seemed so tocohereof as to defy orderly explanation, and woven them into a theory which for beauty, simplicity and downriflit common sense is unlikely tor a ton* time to be bettered. Her achievement in harmony with the fundamentil tenets of religion, has won warn commendation from churchmen are alive to the possibilities M rational psychological treatment Perhaps farther yet in the formula, tion of psychological truths in tenu acceptable to churchmen, has gone the Rev. J. A. C. Murray, an Edinburgh clergyman. His “Introduction to t Christian Psycho-therapy” is a muter, piece of scholarly writing, based cn years of pastoral and therapeutta work. He writes as one inspired. With a wisdom born of centuries nt experience of human nature, th* Roman Catholic Church has long helped members of its flock to meet their mental and emotional problems For a good many years, aevenl Methodist ministers, guided, no doubt by the Rev. Leslie Weethertiead, ot London, have quietly carried on curative work in psychology here in our midst. Under enlightened leaden ship, the Presbyterian Church is taking tentative steps in the saros direction. And now the Anglican. On a visit to Dr. Henry Lahn. « Chicago, my attention was drawn to several chairs and table* that cluttered up the floor of a big bay window. The doctor remarked: “1! you want to get to that window. you may lift each piece at furniture and set it in another pari nt the room. Ordinary methods of treatment are something like that Or." said he, “you may dash in, thrust them aside, and so force a passage. That is the way of spiritual healing." It is a splendid short cut which doubtless underlies the seeming miracles of healing of Jesus, th* disciples and some of their early followers. When the Church at large recovers this, all our intellectually devised modes of therapy will seen clumsy and obsolete.