Psychotherapy can be said to have existed throughout history because mental health professionals, philosophers, spiritual healers, and people in general used psychological techniques to treat other people. By the 19th century, a moral treatment movement at the time known as morale or mental treatment based on non-invasive, non-restraint therapeutic approaches had emerged in the Western tradition. Freud went to the Nancy School, where he used hypnosis in his early neurological work. However, Freud began focusing on conditions that appeared to have psychological causes originating in childhood experiences and the unconscious mind following the work of his mentor Breuer, in particular a case where the patient Pappenheim, dubbed a talking cure. He went on to develop methods like free association, dream interpretation, transference and an analysis of the id, ego and superego. He also developed these other techniques. His use of the distinct term psychoanalysis, linked to an overarching system of theories and methods and the effective work of his followers in rewriting history established his popular reputation as the father of psychotherapy. The European school of existential philosophy inspired some therapeutic approaches. Major contributors to the field and Europe attempted to develop therapies that were sensitive to common life crises arising from the essential bleakness of human self-awareness, which were previously only accessible through the complex writings of existential philosophers (e.g., Kierkegaard, Sartre, Marcel, Heidegger and Nietzsche). The primary focus of the field was on the individual's capacity to develop and maintain a sense of meaning and purpose As a result, the patient-therapist relationship also functions as a vehicle for therapeutic investigation. Carl Rogers started a related school of thought in psychotherapy in the 1950s. Rogers popularized person-centered psychotherapy by drawing on Maslow's work and his hierarchy of human needs. A number of theorists, including Adler, Jung, Horney, Freud, Rank, Erikson, Klein and Kohut, frequently developed their own systems of psychotherapy on top of Freud's fundamental ideas. All of these were later categorized as psychodynamic, which refers to anything that involved the conscious or unconscious influence of the psyche on the self and relationships outside of it.

Over a number of years, there were typically hundreds of sessions. Behaviorism emerged in the 1920s, and the 1950s and 1960s saw the rise of behavior modification as a treatment option. Wolpe in South Africa, Shapiro and Eysenck in the United Kingdom and Watson and Skinner in the United States were notable contributors. In order to effect therapeutic change in observable symptoms, behavioral therapy approaches relied on the principles of operant conditioning, classical conditioning, and social learning theory. Phobias and other disorders became common targets for this method. Transpersonal psychology, which focuses on the spiritual aspect of human experience, and systemic therapy, which focuses on family and group dynamics, also developed. The human givens approach, feminist therapy, brief therapy, somatic psychology, expressive therapy, applied positive psychology and other orientations that have emerged in the last three decades include in 2006, a survey of more than 2,500 therapists in the United States revealed the ten most influential therapists and the most popular therapy models.

With Regards,
Joseph Kent
Journal Manager
Journal of Brain, Behaviour and Cognitive Sciences