psychotherapyn.

1853 Jrnl. Psychol. Med. & Mental Pathol. 6 268 (heading) Psychotherapeia, or the remedial influence of mind.]

1892 F. W. van Eeden in Med. Mag. 1 233 As a general term for our treatment we selected in 1889, ‘Suggestive Psycho-therapy’. We called psychotherapy every description of therapeutics that cures by means of the intervention of the psychical functions of the sufferer. This title is borrowed from Hack Tuke... Psycho-therapy..has..had the misfortune to be taken in tow by hypnotism.

1897 T. H. Kellogg Text-bk. Mental Dis. xi. 497 By the term psychotherapy is signified..every means and every possible agency which primarily affects the psychical rather than the physical organization of the patient in a curative direction.

1904 Westm. Gaz. 1 June 4/2 Though the word ‘Psychotherapy’ be new, and popular in America—the land of Faith-Healers—mental therapeutics acting through the ‘unconscious mind’ is no new thing.

1906 Amer. Jrnl. Med. Sci. 132 499 Prof. Dejerine was treating the psychoneuroses, especially hysteria and neurasthenia, by isolation and psychotherapy.

1921 Punch 5 Jan. 2/1 Only a protracted course of psycho-therapy can readjust the balance between the rational and the sub-conscious self.

1947 Nature 4 Jan. 38/2 Psychotherapy may be useful for the criminal, but it is prolonged, and an impractical treatment with present resources.

1958 Sunday Times 15 June 13/3 By psychotherapy is meant the systematic application of psychological principles to the treatment of psychogenic ill-health and maladjustment.

1963 A. Heron Towards Quaker View of Sex 50 A number of psychotherapy clinics which give treatment for sexual difficulties.

1976 J. R. Smythies & L. Corbett Psychiatry Students of Med. ii. 19 Psychotherapy consists very largely in helping people to grow up, to exchange the egocentric child's role for the mature role of the adult.

1987 P. Westcott Alternative Health Care for Women iv. 160 Of particular interest to women is feminist psychotherapy which looks at women's problems within a political understanding of what it means to be a woman in our society.

1997 Independent 4 June 2/4 A survey of 54 diagnosed sufferers of schizophrenia found that only five had places at day or drop-in centres and only four had been offered counselling or psychotherapy.

1908 Sioux Valley (Correctionville, Iowa) News 5 Mar. 3/2 (headline) A warning to psychotherapists.

1909 A. A. Brill tr. S. Freud Sel. Papers on Hysteria iii. 55 I was not always a psychotherapist but like other neuropathologists I was educated to the use of focal diagnosis and electrical prognosis.

1923 Daily Mail 19 Jan. 7 An earnest warning to nervous persons to avoid spiritualism is given by Dr. W. Stekel, the Viennese neurologist and psycho-therapist.

1930 R. S. Woodworth Psychol. (ed. 8) xiii. 568 Many psychotherapists avoid the use of hypnosis because, as they say, it does not get to the root of the trouble.

1976 J. R. Smythies & L. Corbett Psychiatry Students of Med. xvii. 291 Most psychotherapists refuse to give specific advice as to what their patient's conduct should be in cases where ethical problems are concerned.

1995 Independent 9 Dec. (Mag.) 17/1 Almost every psychotherapist started on the other side of the couch, and I am no exception.