Mind Games: American Culture and the Birth of Psychotherapy

The research evidence for the common factors models: A historically situated perspective.

“…K. Shapiro & Shapiro, 1997), increasingly concentrated on the physiochemical causes of illness. Because medicine was not yet dominant, an increasing number of Americans during this period turned toward practices that healed through the mind and contained aspects of spirituality and religion, the most popular of which were Christian Science and the New Thought movement (Caplan, 1998;Taylor, 1999). At first, medicine deliberately dismissed these movements, fot the most part, as unscientific attempts to cure illnesses, whether physical or mental.…”

“…Legitimacy lagged behind popularity, but gradually the involvement of American psychologists lent credibility to the idea of talk therapy as distinct from the religious movements. The Boston School of Psychopathology, which was initiated in 1859 and included the psychologists William James and G. Stanley Hall as well as neurologists and psychiatrists, was followed by the Emmanuel Movement, which was initiated in 1906 as a collaboration between physicians who recognized the importance of the psyche and Christian ministers who recognized the moral aspect to behavior (Caplan, 1998;Taylor, 1999).…”

“…Medicine was particularly threatened by treatments provided by nonphysicians for physical as well as mental distress and exerted its professional privilege to conduct psychotherapy (Caplan, 1998;Wampold, 2001a). The sentiment was expressed by prominent physician John K. Mitchell, "Most earnestly should we insist that the treatment of a patient, whether it be surgical, medical, or psychic, should for the safety of the public, be in the hands of a doctor" (Caplan, 1998, p. 143).…”

Outcomes management, reimbursement, and the future of psychotherapy.

“…Because medical piactitioneis of that eta saw medicine as a profession based on the scientific study of physiochemical (i.e., somatic) processes, mental illness-and in fact all mental states-were considered byproducts of some yet unknown physiochemical process. Thus, whereas populai culture was becoming increasingly interested in "mind cures" (including those espoused by Christian Science and the New Thought movements), oiganized medicine continued to ignore the psyche (Caplan, 1998).…”

“…Several MBHOs have already launched initiatives to measure treatment outcomes within theii netwoiks. The Human Affaits International Outcomes Clinical Infoimation System Project (1995-1998, the PacifiCare Behavioral Health (PBH) ALERT project (1998)(1999)(2000)(2001)(2002)(2003)(2004)(2005)(2006), and Resources fot Living SIGNAL system are three well-documented prototypes of outcomes-infoimed care initiatives (Brown, Butlingame, Lambert, Jones, & Vacano, 2001;Brown et al, 1999;Brown, Fiasei, & Bendoiaitis, 1995;Brown, Lambeit, Jones, & Minami, 2005;Millet, Duncan, Sonell, & Brown, 2005). All of these projects included the following goals: (a) to encourage frequent administration of a client self-report outcome questionnaire, (b) to set up a centralized database foi all outcome data, (c) to provide feedback to piactitioneis in the fotm of individual case alerts as well as outcomes across all clients on caseload, (d) to use infoimation on providei outcomes to identify highly effective providets fot putposes of steeling tefenals, 1 and (e) to involve independent teseatchets and encourage publication of results.…”