Historical Background of Counseling
Historical background of counseling
Historically, guidance & counseling emerged as a synthesis of ideas & practices derived from religion ( search for spiritual meaning/ identity; concepts like "pastoral care"), C19th philosophy ( concept of the "unconscious mind" - in fact, pre Freudian/ philosophical in origin), the Arts ( self-expression through performance, literature, autobiography, journalism, poetry, plastic arts, music etc. ), and the needs of people to maintain & promote individualism/ sense of autonomous selfhood in the face of large bureaucratic institutions & an increasingly depersonalized, alienating urban industrial society. To some extent, they were substitutes for traditional community life & religion: in a more secular age of mass urban societies, counseling offered ways for individuals to "be known" and to "be heard". Key figures included: the Dutch physicians Van Renterghem & Van Eaden - "Clinic of Suggestive Psychotherapy", Amsterdam, est. 1887, and JJ Gasner & Anton Mesmer (C18th Austria) who popularized "Animal Magnetism" (aka "Mesmerism"), & opened the door to the modern study/ application of hypnosis; a term coined by Scottish physician J Braid. These early "hypnotherapists" were well aware of unconscious thoughts/ motivations, & used "mesmeric trances" to open areas of mind not accessible during normal waking consciousness. During the 1880s the French physicians Charcot & Janet used hypnosis to treat "hysterical" patients. More generally, "Mesmerism"/ hypnosis was one of the great popular cultural fads of the Victorian period: a "Golden Age" for stage hypnosis (very popular in Music Hall shows etc.), and many public figures were very interested in hypnotism, notably the novelists Charles Dickens (a keen amateur magician, & enthusiastic hypnotist) and Wilkie Collins. In parallel with this was the Victorian belief in "Self Help" (Samuel Smiles et al), plus (by the early C20th) the emerging "behaviorist" ideas of
Historically, guidance & counseling emerged as a synthesis of ideas & practices derived from religion ( search for spiritual meaning/ identity; concepts like "pastoral care"), C19th philosophy ( concept of the "unconscious mind" - in fact, pre Freudian/ philosophical in origin), the Arts ( self-expression through performance, literature, autobiography, journalism, poetry, plastic arts, music etc. ), and the needs of people to maintain & promote individualism/ sense of autonomous selfhood in the face of large bureaucratic institutions & an increasingly depersonalized, alienating urban industrial society. To some extent, they were substitutes for traditional community life & religion: in a more secular age of mass urban societies, counseling offered ways for individuals to "be known" and to "be heard". Key figures included: the Dutch physicians Van Renterghem & Van Eaden - "Clinic of Suggestive Psychotherapy", Amsterdam, est. 1887, and JJ Gasner & Anton Mesmer (C18th Austria) who popularized "Animal Magnetism" (aka "Mesmerism"), & opened the door to the modern study/ application of hypnosis; a term coined by Scottish physician J Braid. These early "hypnotherapists" were well aware of unconscious thoughts/ motivations, & used "mesmeric trances" to open areas of mind not accessible during normal waking consciousness. During the 1880s the French physicians Charcot & Janet used hypnosis to treat "hysterical" patients. More generally, "Mesmerism"/ hypnosis was one of the great popular cultural fads of the Victorian period: a "Golden Age" for stage hypnosis (very popular in Music Hall shows etc.), and many public figures were very interested in hypnotism, notably the novelists Charles Dickens (a keen amateur magician, & enthusiastic hypnotist) and Wilkie Collins. In parallel with this was the Victorian belief in "Self Help" (Samuel Smiles et al), plus (by the early C20th) the emerging "behaviorist" ideas of