You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
Psychoanalytic therapy is compared with the following types of primitive psychotherapy: 1. Religious exorcism of demoniacal possession in the sixteenth century, illustrated by an analysis of The Confessions of Jeanne Ferey. 2. Current native practices on the African Gold Coast. 3. Zen Buddhism as a method of psychotherapy. These primitive psychotherapies are strikingly similar and resemble our psychotherapy in that they all often succeed and they all take a good deal of time with frequent, often daily, contacts between therapist and patient. Moreover, they all utilize the development of an intense relationship between patient and therapist that seems to be resolved in cases with a favorable outcome. The 'cured' patient not infrequently becomes a therapist. How the primitive methods differ from psychoanalytic therapy is considered very briefly. Tentative conclusions are presented which offer little more than an awareness that cultural and intrapsychic factors are intricately involved in the therapeutic process, and a caveat that one should not minimize the operation of the primary process in therapeutic success and not confuse theoretical understanding with therapeutic efficiency.