Psychotherapy: Including the History of the Use of Mental Influence, Directly and Indirectly, in Healing and the Principles for the Application of Energies Derived from the Mind to the Treatment of Disease — John Shaqi
Psychotherapy: Including the History of the Use of Mental Influence, Directly and Indirectly, in Healing and the Principles for the Application of Energies Derived from the Mind to the Treatment of DiseaseWalsh, James J. (James Joseph)
Science
Psychotherapy: Including the History of the Use of Mental Influence, Directly and Indirectly, in Healing and the Principles for the Application of Energies Derived from the Mind to the Treatment of Disease
Walsh, James J. (James Joseph)
Mental healing
Perhaps Hippocrates' most striking direct contribution to
psychotherapy is his aphorism with regard to pain. He said: "Of two
pains occurring together in different parts of the body, the stronger
weakens the other." When {11} the attention is distracted from pain,
then it is lessened. Of two pains, then, only the one that attracts
the most attention is much felt, and, if a slight pain is succeeded by
a severe pain in another part of the body, the lesser pain will
apparently become trivial, or, indeed, not be felt at all.
In Plato we find the direct philosophic expression of the value of
psychotherapy. There had been during the preceding century a great
increase in information with regard to the facts of physical nature,
and especially the sciences relating to the human body, and so men had
come, as they are prone to at such eras--our own, for instance--to
think too much of the body and too little of the mind that rules it.
Accordingly, we have from Plato a deliberate, emphatic assertion of
this great truth under circumstances which make us realize how keenly
he appreciated its significance for the art of medicine and for
humanity.
Professor Osier, in his address, "Physic and Physicians as Depicted in
Plato," [Footnote 1] tells a story which shows clearly how much the
great Greek philosopher appreciated the place of psychotherapy.
[Footnote 1: "AEquanimitas and Other Addresses."]
Charmides had been complaining of a headache, and Critias had asked
Socrates to make believe that he could cure him of it. Socrates said
that he had a charm which he had learnt, when serving with the army,
of one of the physicians of the Thracian king. Zamolxis. This
physician had told Socrates that the cure of a part should not be
attempted without treatment of the whole, and, also, that no attempt
should be made to cure the body without the soul, "and, therefore, if
the head and body are to be well, you must begin by curing the mind;
that is the first thing. And he who taught me the cure and the charm
added a special direction. 'Let no one,' he said, 'persuade you to
cure the head until he has first given you his soul to be cured. _For
this,'_ he said, _'is the great error of our day in the treatment of
the human body, that physicians separate the soul from the body._'"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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