Psychotherapy, treatment of mental or emotional disorders or personal problems using psychological techniques that rely heavily on verbal and emotional communication and other symbolic behavior. Psychotherapy differs in two ways from the informal help one person gives another. First, it is conducted by a psychotherapist who is specially trained and licensed or otherwise culturally sanctioned. Second, psychotherapy is guided by theories about the sources of distress and the methods needed to alleviate it. Because communication is the primary means of healing in most forms of psychotherapy, the relationship between the therapist and patient, or client, is much more important than in other medical treatments. The therapist’s personality influences the patient and may be used quite deliberately to achieve therapeutic ends.
Psychotherapy is often used in conjunction with other treatments, especially psychotropic drug therapy (seePsychoactive Drug; Psychiatry). These drugs may be prescribed by a mental health professional, usually a psychiatrist (a physician who specializes in the treatment of psychological problems). (See also Mental Disorders; Mental Health.)
Attempts to ameliorate emotional and mental disorders through psychological means date from ancient time. Psychotherapeutic practices based on scientific principles date from about 1772, when the Austrian physician Franz Anton Mesmer defined and used a form of hypnosis called animal magnetism. Neuroses were treated in the 19th century with such physical agents as water or painful electrical currents, both of which also depended for effectiveness on the use of suggestion. Hypnotism as a method of suggestion for alleviating certain psychological disturbances reached its height late in the 19th century, as practiced by the French neurologist Jean Martin Charcot and his associates at the Salpêtrière Hospital in Paris.