The History and Future of Psychotherapy and Alternative Health-Related Practices: Lessons from the Past and from the Present

Abstract

This article discusses the political potential of contemporary psychotherapy and complementary and alternative medicine which have stood, for the most part, outside centralised political power structures. While the focus of the article is primarily historical, it seeks to extract lessons from the past for the context of today; and, in particular, examines the way in which psychotherapy and alternative health movements have sought to construct an alternative to political centralisation and the divide between expert and popular culture in the early twentieth century. To date, very little explicitly comparative or historical work has been done regarding the relationship between contemporary psychotherapy and earlier politicised healthcare movements; and, in this context, the article examines the relevance of some earlier forebears of contemporary psychotherapy to the politics of psychotherapy today. It looks at three different historical scenarios in order to deepen our understanding about the interaction between psychotherapy and political power.