“Psychotherapy and the Psychotherapeutic Relationship in Historical Context: New Thought, Christian Science, and the Emmanuel Movement”

Wiedemer, Jacqueline Marie. “Psychotherapy and the Psychotherapeutic Relationship in Historical Context: New Thought, Christian Science, and the Emmanuel Movement.” Honours Thesis, University of Prince Edward Island, Dept. of Psychology, May, 2021.

Wiedemer presents a chronological history of the development of psychotherapy by examining the contributions of alternative healing groups. She begins with 18^th-century asylums and Franz Anton Mesmer, followed by 19^th-century mind-cure movements and personalities: Swedenborgianism, spiritualism, Phineas Parkhurst Quimby, Warren Felt Evans, New Thought, Christian Science, and the Emmanuel Movement. According to Wiedemer, these movements’ focus on the connection between the healer and sufferer made them precursors of contemporary psychotherapy’s relation-based methods. As for Christian Science, Wiedemer acknowledges Quimby’s initial influence on Mary Baker Eddy, but also distinguishes Christian Science from Quimby and mind-cure by Eddy’s conviction that matter is an illusion, by the highly organized and authoritative nature of her church, and by its combining of mental healing practices with elements of Christianity. In the early 20^th century, the Boston-based Emmanuel Movement, begun by an Episcopal minister and psychologist, Dr. Elwood Worcester, would work to reconcile a psychologically based holistic approach to medicine with the church’s healing mission, employing counseling sessions, “suggestive therapy” (61), weekly health classes, prayer, and social services. The movement was criticized by mainline medicine and churches, as well as by Christian Science advocates pointing out that Jesus did not diagnose or turn to physicians to heal.

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