Psychotherapy is such an important part of our way of life that one can forget that it’s a recent innovation. You will never see a character in a Jane Austen or Charles Dickens novel heading off for therapy, because therapy didn’t exist before the very late 19th century. Why not?
Some psychologists will argue that psychotherapy (like, say, chemistry) could only get going after some key scientific discoveries, but this is at best only part of the story. Psychotherapy emerged because of some important moral shifts in the late 19th century, shifts that also had something to do with the emergence of contemporary consumer society, advertising, and entertainment. When I say moral shifts, I am referring to matters like how people think about themselves and what they value in life.
The historian T.J. Jackson Lears sums up these matters by saying that around this time people began to develop a “therapeutic ethos.” By this he means that—compared to earlier ages–at this time people began to be very concerned about their physical and mental health, their well-being. In earlier, more religious, periods, questions like “are you getting all you can out of life?” and “are you happy?” were considered less important than questions about your state of salvation and your obligations to others. In fact, the idea that one should be maximizing one’s enjoyment and potential would have been absurd most people of 17th century.
However, throughout the 19th century the idea started to take hold that individual happiness and satisfaction was not only important, but in some ways the very purpose of life. People began to resonate with the notion that what was meaningful was not doing what society or God demanded, but rather finding and realizing the potential of their own unique selves. And as this inner self became important, taking care of it through various kinds of therapies became more important as well.
Why did these changes happen around this time? A full answer to that question would probably require a book, but notice that this is the period in which mass production techniques and other innovations began to create today’s consumer economy. The new moral attitudes encouraged consumption, because they stressed the importance of the individual’s happiness and fulfillment. It is especially important that this period also saw the spectacular growth of advertising and entertainments such as motion pictures.
Historians have pointed out that one of the most effective promoters of consumption was a new kind of advertising started to appear in this period: instead of providing information about the product, the new ads told the potential buyer that the product could transform his or her life. Strange, isn’t it: In a way, the ads were offering the same promises as the new science of psychotherapy, the possibility of personal transformation and a new level of satisfaction and happiness.
In pointing out this relationship between entertainment, advertising, and psychotherapy, am I saying that psychotherapy is unscientific? Absolutely not: a century of research has led to enormous advances and refinements in therapeutic techniques. But it’s best to remember where you came from, and back in the nursery it was a little more obvious who psychotherapy’s siblings and cousins were.
