Abstract

Forty years ago, psychoanalysis reigned as the dominant form of psychotherapy and as the leading psychiatric "school" in American medical education. Since then, there have been several editions and revisions of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual which emphasized a more systematic, nosological understanding of mental illness. Starting in the mid-1950s, effective pharmacological management of disorders led to the development of bio-medical theories of mania, schizophrenia, and now even depression and anxiety. Then the behaviorist demonstrated superior treatments for phobia. In the 1960s, Rogers and Perls led American psychotherapists on a humanistic exodus from Freudian approaches. In the 1989s, Aaron Beck's cognitive direction began to dominate the treatment of depression