English - Free topic D: Curing the mind: History of psychotherapy in the modern world

Does everyone need a therapist? Who is psychotherapy for, and how did its scope grow to regularly include those who do not suffer from any mental illness? This course aims to cover the development of modern modes of psychotherapeutic intervention - from hypnosis and suggestion to rational persuasion, re-education and work therapy, bibliotherapy and film psychotherapy, psychoanalysis and cognitive and behavioural approaches. It explores how ideas about the mind and its plasticity have changed in response to broader historical, political and social contexts, and how they shaped efforts to cure or ameliorate psychological pathology and suffering. In this vein, the course considers not only historical documents, but also cultural texts – literature and film, in particular - that inform and are informed by psychological paradigms. We can think, for example, about literature’s shifting depictions of character psychology, as well as the methods of interpretation that literary scholars have shared with psychologists. We are also interested in how different forms of psychotherapy were popularized in film. The course brings the historical development of psychotherapeutic interventions in dialogue with biological psychiatry and psychopharmaceutical revolutions, asking how these different models of the brain (and of ‘human nature’) have co-existed and interacted throughout the modern period. Furthermore, the course reflects on the rise of psychotherapy as one of the most important health-related disciplines of the 20^th century, asking how ideas and narratives of modern selfhood fostered the belief in the supreme importance of attending to the health of the mind. The course offers a global historical overview with a focus on the English-speaking world.