PSYCHOTHERAPY IN FOLK-MEDICINE 227 



PSYCHOTHEEAPY IN FOLK-MEDICINE 



By Dr. ABRAM LIPSKY 



NEW TOBK CITY 



PSYCHOTHERAPY may look like a discovery of the twentieth 

 century, but the truly remarkable thing about it is the extent to 

 which it has been practised without being scientifically understood. 

 It has been in the world since the remotest antiquity, nor has it ever 

 left the precincts of civilization. A scholar spelling out an Assyrian 

 inscription discovers a cure for rheumatism as follows : " Surround the 

 patient with a circle of leavened meal, place his foot upon a reed-bearing 

 dough, then put away the refuse-food. Take him seven time across the 

 surrounding circle, saying ' Ea hath loosed, free the evil, Ea hath created, 

 still the wrath, undo the knots of evil, for Ea is with thee ! Physi- 

 cian of the World ! Ninnissin ! Thou art the gracious mother 'of 

 the world, the leader of the underworld, the mistress of E-dubbo,' " etc. 

 What is this but psychotherapy ? A New England cure for rheumatism 

 is to take a cat along to bed. That too is psychotherapy and rests on 

 essentially the same principle. 



The scientific person will say that these are interesting examples of 

 heathen superstition, but that no one was ever cured by such means. 

 That is just the question. In the light of our present knowledge, the 

 probability is that both the Assyrian and the New England methods 

 have worked — at least sometimes. Both are illustrations of the influ- 

 ence of thought upon the body. In the one case, faith of a religious 

 nature dispels the physical symptoms; in the other, fear of the cat 

 is probably the therapeutic distraction — or, as the psychologists call 

 it, the "dissociation." 



Popular psychotherapy has long known what science is only now 

 finding out. The best known example of mind-cure is probably that 

 of the toothache that ceases when the dental office is approached. If 

 a man may cure his toothache by walking in the direction of a dentist's 

 office, why may he not cure it by spitting into a frog's mouth, or scratch- 

 ing his gum with a nail and driving the nail into an oak tree, or pulling 

 out with his own teeth the teeth of a dead man's skull, or solemnly 

 repeating the lines : 



Christ passed by his brother's door, 



Saw his brother lying upon the floor, 



What aileth thee, brother? fOQ 



Pain in the teeth? Lu L t 8 R A R ^ 



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