1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910495885303321

Autore

Caplan Eric <1962->

Titolo

Mind games : American culture and the birth of psychotherapy / / Eric Caplan [[electronic resource]]

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Berkeley, Calif., : University of California Press, c1998

ISBN

0-520-92702-8

0-585-06873-9

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (xiii, 242 p. )

Collana

Medicine and society  Mind games

Medicine and society ; ; 9

Disciplina

616.89/00973

Soggetti

Mental healing - United States - History - 19th century

Psychotherapy - Social aspects - United States

Psychotherapy - United States - History - 19th century

Mental Healing - history

Psychotherapy - history

Mental Healing

Psychology, Social

Culture

History, 19th Century

Psychotherapy

Behavioral Disciplines and Activities

Spiritual Therapies

Psychology

History, Modern 1601-

Anthropology, Cultural

Sociology

Behavior and Behavior Mechanisms

Mind-Body Therapies

Behavioral Sciences

Anthropology

Psychiatry

Social Sciences

Complementary Therapies

History

Therapeutics

Humanities

Psychiatry - General

Health & Biological Sciences



United States Social life and customs 19th century

United States

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references (p. 209-235) and index.

Nota di contenuto

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- 1 Introduction -- 12 Trains, Brains, and Sprains: Railway Spine and the Origins of Psychoneuroses -- 3 Avoiding Psychotherapy: Neurasthenia and the Limits of Somatic Therapy -- 4 Inventing Psychotherapy: The American Mind Cure Movement, 1830-190 0 -- 5 Flirting with Psychotherapy: Somatic Intransigence and the "Advanced Guard" -- 6 Embracing Psychotherapy: The Emmanuel Movement and the American Medical Profession -- 7 Conclusion -- Notes -- Selected Bibliography -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

Eric Caplan's fascinating exploration of Victorian culture in the United States shatters the myth of Freud's seminal role in the creation of American psychotherapy. Resurrecting the long-buried "prehistory" of American mental therapeutics, Mind Games tells the remarkable story of how a widely assorted group of actors-none of them hailing from Vienna or from any other European city-compelled a reluctant medical profession to accept a new role for the mind in medicine. By the time Freud first set foot on American soil in 1909, as Caplan demonstrates, psychotherapy was already integrally woven into the fabric of American culture and medicine.What came to be known as psychotherapy emerged in the face of considerable opposition, much-indeed most-of which was generated by the medical profession itself. Caplan examines the contentious interplay within the American medical community, as well as between American physicians and their lay rivals, who included faith-healers, mind-curists, Christian Scientists, and Protestant ministers. These early practitioners of alternative medicine ultimately laid the groundwork for a distinctive and much heralded American type of psychotherapy. Its grudging acceptance by both medical elites and rank and file physicians signified their understanding that reliance on physical therapies to treat nervous and mental symptoms compromised their capacity to treat-and compete-effectively in a rapidly expanding mental-medical marketplace. Mind Games shows how psychotherapy came to occupy its central position in mainstream American culture.