The main problems of the history of psychotherapy (part I)

Relevance. The full history of psychotherapy remains unwritten at the moment, although the historiography of the related disciplines, psychiatry and psychology, is presented quite well. Due to the fact that any area of human knowledge cannot be comprehended without studying its roots, without reflecting on the development of its own ideas about the reality being studied, the historical description of the genesis of the theory and practice of psychological assistance remains an essential task. At the same time, numerous challenges exist in this domain, which must be addressed to facilitate the writing of the history of psychotherapy.

Intention: to identify the main problems of the history of psychotherapy and offer solutions to them.

Methodology. A systematic analysis was conducted to examine five problems in the history of psychotherapy: the problems of fact and its interpretation, sources, methodology, the “starting point” of psychotherapy history, and periodization of psychotherapy history.

Results and their analysis. Five problems of the history of psychotherapy were analyzed and solutions were proposed: the problem of fact and its interpretation (the fact is not as an event, but as a statement about the event, subjectivism in the interpretation of facts, the need to reflect different points of view in the interpretation of facts in historiography), the problem of the source (monographs, articles and lectures of classic scientists, reference and educational literature, manuals on psychotherapy were proposed as sources of the history of psychotherapy), the problem of the method (three groups of methods for studying of history of psychotherapy are proposed – organizational and strategic methods, methods of obtaining and methods of processing and interpreting data), the problem of the “starting point” of the history of psychotherapy (eight potentially possible “starting point” of the history of psychotherapy have been identified, depending on various criteria), the problem of the periodization of the history of psychotherapy (a number of criteria for the periodization of the history of psychotherapy are presented, a scheme of its division into periods is proposed, consisting of two epochs and five stages of development).

Conclusion. The insufficient development of the history of psychotherapy and the lack of consensus on even fundamental questions hinder the proposition of singularly possible and unequivocally correct solutions to the identified problems. Nevertheless, identifying these challenges represents the first step toward constructing an appropriate narrative. It is hoped that this article will stimulate discussions among specialists regarding the history of psychotherapy and lead to the discovery of solutions for the mentioned problems.

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