A timeline of psychotherapy and counselling
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Moral treatment, hypnosis & early clinics · up to 1894
Philosophical consolation, asylum reform, moral treatment, hypnotism, suggestion, and early dynamic theories of dissociation before formal psychotherapy schools.
- (link to this entry)
Cicero composes Tusculanae Disputationes on the philosophical treatment of distress
Following the death of his daughter Tullia, Marcus Tullius Cicero wrote the five books of Tusculanae Disputationes, arguing that grief, fear, and destructive passions arise from mistaken judgements that can be alleviated through structured philosophical dialogue (medicina animi). In the second century CE, the physician Galen similarly proposed in On the Diagnosis and Cure of the Soul's Passions that individuals require an impartial mentor to point out emotional blind spots and cultivate self-mastery.
Project Gutenberg: Cicero's Tusculan Disputations
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Why it matters
Greco-Roman consolation literature and philosophical guidance framed emotional suffering as responsive to reasoned conversation and cognitive reframing rather than purely supernatural appeasement or physical physic.
In psychotherapy and counselling
Stoic and Academic practices of examining beliefs about loss, rehearsing adversity, and engaging a candid interlocutor prefigured cognitive restructuring and Socratic questioning in modern cognitive-behavioural therapies.
Important context and scope
Ancient philosophical care was an ethical and educational practice for literate elites rather than a clinical profession, and its analogies to modern psychotherapy are conceptual rather than institutional. Composed c. 45 BCE at Tusculum; closely paralleled in later Greco-Roman medicine by Galen's On the Diagnosis and Cure of the Soul's Passions (c. 170 CE).
Date type
Publication year, approximate
Sources
- Project Gutenberg: Cicero's Tusculan Disputations(primary or catalogue record)
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Ancient Theories of Soul(scholarly or historical account)
- (link to this entry)
Abu Zayd al-Balkhi writes Masalih al-Abdan wa al-Anfus (Sustenance for Body and Soul)
In Masalih al-Abdan wa al-Anfus, Abu Zayd al-Balkhi discussed the care of body and soul. The section on the soul describes anger, fear, sadness and distressing recurring thoughts, and offers ways of responding to them.
Al-Balkhi: Sustenance of the Soul, translated by Malik Badri (2013), complete translation
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Why it matters
The treatise is a historical account of emotional distress and its relationship to bodily health. A modern study compares al-Balkhi’s description of fear with contemporary concepts of phobia.
In psychotherapy and counselling
Al-Balkhi described preparing helpful thoughts in calmer moments and recalling them when distressing thoughts arise. Modern authors have drawn comparisons with cognitive approaches; resemblance does not establish a direct line of influence or clinical effectiveness.
Important context and scope
The Arabic treatise belongs to an Islamic intellectual and medical setting and reflects its historical ideas about body, soul and the bodily humours. Its categories should not be equated automatically with modern diagnoses. Al-Balkhi lived in the ninth and tenth centuries CE; the precise date of composition is uncertain.
Date type
Publication year, approximate
Sources
- Al-Balkhi: Sustenance of the Soul, translated by Malik Badri (2013), complete translation(primary or catalogue record)
- PubMed: Awaad and Ali (2016), al-Balkhi’s account of phobia(scholarly or historical account)
- (link to this entry)
Johann Weyer publishes De praestigiis daemonum on witchcraft accusations
In 1563, court physician Johann Weyer published De praestigiis daemonum in Basel. He challenged the prosecution of people accused of witchcraft, questioning supposed pacts with the devil and invoking medical, legal and theological arguments.
WorldCat: De praestigiis daemonum (Basel, 1563)
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Why it matters
Weyer’s work is an early critique of witchcraft prosecutions. Historians have also questioned accounts that present him as a straightforward founder of modern psychiatry or as a purely secular critic of demonology.
In psychotherapy and counselling
Weyer argued that physicians should be consulted in cases involving accusations. His descriptions invoked melancholy and assumptions about elderly women; they are historical explanations, not diagnoses of the people who were accused.
Important context and scope
Weyer accepted the existence of demons and worked within the religious and medical ideas of his time. His portrayal of women as vulnerable to deception also reflected assumptions about gender and age. First Latin edition published in Basel by Johannes Oporinus in 1563.
Date type
Publication year
Sources
- WorldCat: De praestigiis daemonum (Basel, 1563)(primary or catalogue record)
- Encyclopaedia Britannica: Johann Weyer(scholarly or historical account)
- Metzger (2013): Battling demons with medical authority: werewolves, physicians and rationalization(scholarly or historical account)
- Weyer, De Praestigiis Daemonum (1563), translated excerpts, Book III(primary or catalogue record)
- (link to this entry)
Robert Burton publishes The Anatomy of Melancholy
Oxford scholar and cleric Robert Burton published The Anatomy of Melancholy, an encyclopaedic synthesis of classical, medieval, and Renaissance medical and philosophical literature on sorrow, fear, religious despair, and love-melancholy. Drawing openly on his own lived experience of melancholia, Burton recommended confiding in a trusted, empathetic friend alongside moderation in diet, exercise, music, and purposeful occupation.
Project Gutenberg: The Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton
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Why it matters
Burton's work bridged humoral medicine and early psychological introspection, emphasising that unburdening grief to a non-judgemental listener could relieve distress when physical remedies failed.
In psychotherapy and counselling
His prescription of candid self-disclosure, compassionate companionship, and structured daily activity prefigured supportive counselling, behavioural activation, and the therapeutic alliance.
Important context and scope
The book is a literary and scholarly compendium rather than a clinical manual, blending humoral physiology, astrology, theology, and humane consolatory counsel. First quarto edition published at Oxford in 1621 under the pseudonym Democritus Junior; expanded across five further editions during Burton's lifetime.
Date type
Publication year
Sources
- Project Gutenberg: The Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton(primary or catalogue record)
- Internet Archive: The Anatomy of Melancholy(primary or catalogue record)
- (link to this entry)
Franz Anton Mesmer publishes Mémoire sur la découverte du magnétisme animal
In 1779, physician Franz Anton Mesmer published a statement of his theory of animal magnetism, proposing an invisible fluid as a medium of influence on health. His treatment later included group sessions around a vessel known as a baquet.
Bibliothèque nationale de France (Gallica): Mémoire sur la découverte du magnétisme animal (1779)
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Why it matters
Mesmer’s work attracted widespread attention and later became part of histories of hypnosis and psychotherapy. Historians distinguish his theory and practices from the methods that developed after him.
In psychotherapy and counselling
Mesmer used physical procedures and group settings that he believed transmitted animal magnetism. The Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh notes that he did not practise the later techniques of hypnosis commonly associated with his name.
Important context and scope
In 1784, royal commissioners examined animal magnetism and attributed observed effects to factors including imagination. A separate historical account traces the development of magnetic somnambulism to the Marquis de Puységur in 1784. These accounts do not establish the clinical effectiveness of Mesmer’s treatments. Published in Paris and Geneva in 1779 as a 27-proposition summary of Mesmer's magnetic system.
Date type
Publication year
Sources
- Bibliothèque nationale de France (Gallica): Mémoire sur la découverte du magnétisme animal (1779)(primary or catalogue record)
- Encyclopaedia Britannica: Franz Anton Mesmer(scholarly or historical account)
- Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh: Anton Mesmer and animal magnetism(institutional record)
- Crabtree (2019): Puységur and the psychological turn in 1784(scholarly or historical account)
- (link to this entry)
The Franklin-Lavoisier Royal Commission tests animal magnetism with blinded trials
A royal commission including Benjamin Franklin, Antoine Lavoisier, Jean Sylvain Bailly and Joseph-Ignace Guillotin examined animal magnetism as practised by Charles Deslon. In some blindfolded tests, participants reacted when led to believe they were being magnetised, but not when magnetised without their knowledge. The commissioners found no evidence of the proposed magnetic fluid and attributed the effects they observed to imagination, imitation and touch.
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Why it matters
The investigation used blindfolding and comparison to examine whether reported effects depended on knowledge of the supposed treatment. It is an early example of controlled inquiry into a therapeutic claim.
In psychotherapy and counselling
In some experiments, people reacted when they believed they were being magnetised but not when the procedure was performed without their knowledge. These observations do not establish the effectiveness of a treatment.
Important context and scope
The commission examined procedures associated with Charles Deslon; its experiments were not a modern clinical trial of treatment outcomes. Royal Commission appointed by Louis XVI in March 1784; report submitted in August 1784.
Date type
Clinical study or review
Sources
- Library of Congress: Report of Dr Benjamin Franklin and other commissioners charged by the King of France with the examination of animal magnetism(primary or catalogue record)
- Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh: English translation of the 1784 report(primary or catalogue record)
- (link to this entry)
Philippe Pinel begins work at Bicêtre alongside Jean-Baptiste Pussin
Philippe Pinel began medical work at the Bicêtre hospice in 1793, where he observed and worked with governor Jean-Baptiste Pussin. Their approach to care became associated with moral treatment. In 1797 Pussin replaced chains with other restraints; reforms at the Salpêtrière followed later.
Weiner (1994), Le geste de Pinel: The history of a psychiatric myth
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Why it matters
Their work is part of the history of moral treatment, an approach that paid attention to the care environment and relationships with patients.
In psychotherapy and counselling
The historical record describes observation and changes to institutional care. Restraint continued in other forms, including straitjackets.
Important context and scope
The familiar image of Pinel single-handedly removing chains in 1793 simplifies a longer process and obscures Pussin’s role. Pinel assumed medical duties at Bicêtre in September 1793, working alongside non-medical governor Jean-Baptiste Pussin, and moved to the Salpêtrière in 1795.
Date type
Institutional or policy milestone
Sources
- Weiner (1994), Le geste de Pinel: The history of a psychiatric myth(scholarly or historical account)
- Weiner (1979), The apprenticeship of Philippe Pinel: a new document, observations of Citizen Pussin on the insane(scholarly or historical account)
- (link to this entry)
William Tuke opens the York Retreat, later documented by Samuel Tuke (1813)
William Tuke and the Society of Friends established the York Retreat in 1796. In 1813 his grandson Samuel Tuke described its use of a domestic setting, occupation, social activity and encouragement of self-restraint. Although chains were forbidden, seclusion and other forms of restraint were used.
Wellcome Collection: Samuel Tuke, Description of the Retreat, an Institution near York (1813)
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Why it matters
The Retreat and Samuel Tuke's account influenced later discussions of moral treatment and asylum reform. The historical account does not isolate the effect of the environment on recovery.
In psychotherapy and counselling
Samuel Tuke described social activity, occupation and encouragement of self-control as features of care, alongside practices now recognised as coercive.
Important context and scope
Moral treatment at the Retreat combined Quaker values and a domestic setting with forms of supervision and restraint. Later institutions adapted its ideas in different contexts. Opened in May 1796 by William Tuke; documented for international readers in Samuel Tuke's Description of the Retreat (1813).
Date type
Institutional or policy milestone
Sources
- Wellcome Collection: Samuel Tuke, Description of the Retreat, an Institution near York (1813)(primary or catalogue record)
- British Journal of Psychiatry: The Retreat at York of 1796(scholarly or historical account)
- (link to this entry)
Philippe Pinel publishes Traité médico-philosophique sur l'aliénation mentale
Philippe Pinel published his landmark treatise Traité médico-philosophique sur l'aliénation mentale, ou la manie in Paris, presenting empirical clinical histories and arguing that many forms of mental alienation resulted from overwhelming passions, grief, and psychological shocks rather than irreversible brain lesions. He outlined the principles of 'traitement moral', advocating patient listening, avoidance of physical violence, and individualised psychological management.
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Why it matters
Pinel's book provided early nineteenth-century European medicine with a systematic clinical rationale for treating psychological distress through interpersonal and environmental intervention.
In psychotherapy and counselling
He emphasised taking detailed longitudinal biographies, identifying precipitating emotional crises, and maintaining a calm, benevolent therapeutic stance.
Important context and scope
Pinel's 'traitement moral' still included calculated theatrical staging and institutional authority when persuasion failed, distinguishing it from modern non-directive counselling. First edition published in Paris in 1801 (An IX of the French Revolutionary calendar); English translation by D. D. Davis published in 1806.
Date type
Publication year
Sources
- Internet Archive: A Treatise on Insanity by Philippe Pinel (1806 English translation of the 1801 edition)(primary or catalogue record)
- Bibliothèque nationale de France (Gallica): Traité médico-philosophique sur l'aliénation mentale (1801)(primary or catalogue record)
- (link to this entry)
James Braid publishes Neurypnology
In 1843, Scottish surgeon James Braid published Neurypnology, presenting an account of what he called neuro-hypnotism or nervous sleep. He argued against an invisible magnetic fluid as the explanation for the phenomena.
Internet Archive: Neurypnology; or, the Rationale of Nervous Sleep by James Braid (1843)
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Why it matters
Braid helped bring hypnotic phenomena into medical and scientific discussion. A later historical review describes his contribution alongside earlier traditions rather than presenting hypnosis as an entirely new technique.
In psychotherapy and counselling
Braid described sustained eye fixation as a way to induce what he called nervous sleep and reported clinical cases. His case reports do not by themselves establish the effectiveness of hypnosis for a particular condition.
Important context and scope
The 1843 book is a historical account. Contemporary research continues to debate how best to explain hypnotic phenomena; Braid’s terminology and explanations should be read in their historical setting. Published in London and Edinburgh in 1843 after Braid's 1841 observations of Charles Lafontaine's mesmeric demonstrations in Manchester.
Date type
Publication year
Sources
- Internet Archive: Neurypnology; or, the Rationale of Nervous Sleep by James Braid (1843)(primary or catalogue record)
- Encyclopaedia Britannica: James Braid(scholarly or historical account)
- Montgomery and colleagues (2025): history and research on hypnosis(scholarly or historical account)
- (link to this entry)
Walter Cooper Dendy uses the term psychotherapeia
In 1853, London surgeon Walter Cooper Dendy published Psyche; A Discourse on the Birth and Pilgrimage of Thought. A separate article by Dendy, Psychotherapeia, or the Remedial Influence of Mind, appeared that year. Both belong to nineteenth-century discussions of the relationship between mind and body.
Wellcome Collection: Psyche by Walter Cooper Dendy, 1853 (catalogue record)
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Why it matters
The works document an early use of language linking mental influence and treatment. They do not establish that Dendy was the first person to use related terminology.
In psychotherapy and counselling
The title of the 1853 article identifies the remedial influence of mind as its subject. This entry does not assess the effectiveness of the practices discussed.
Important context and scope
The book and the journal article are distinct publications. The evidence cited here does not establish a direct line of influence from Dendy to Daniel Hack Tuke. The book was published in London by Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans in 1853. A separate article appeared in April 1853; their order within the year has not been established here.
Date type
Publication year
Sources
- Wellcome Collection: Psyche by Walter Cooper Dendy, 1853 (catalogue record)(scholarly or historical account)
- National Library of Medicine: Psychotherapeia, or the Remedial Influence of Mind (1853 article)(primary or catalogue record)
- (link to this entry)
Hippolyte Bernheim and Ambroise-Auguste Liébeault establish the Nancy School of suggestive therapeutics
Building on country physician Ambroise-Auguste Liébeault's charitable clinic in Nancy, neurology professor Hippolyte Bernheim published De la suggestion et de ses applications à la thérapeutique (1886), arguing against Jean-Martin Charcot's Salpêtrière school that hypnosis was not a pathological symptom confined to hysteria. Instead, Bernheim demonstrated that hypnosis was a normal heightened state of suggestibility producible through verbal persuasion and that therapeutic effects could also be achieved through waking suggestion (psychothérapie).
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Why it matters
The Nancy School established psychological suggestion and verbal communication as normal, universal human processes applicable to everyday outpatient medical and psychological care.
In psychotherapy and counselling
Both Josef Breuer and Sigmund Freud visited or translated Bernheim's work (Freud translated it into German in 1888), and Freud's gradual abandonment of direct hypnotic command in favour of free association grew directly out of his experience with Nancy-style suggestion.
Important context and scope
Direct authoritarian symptom suggestion frequently produced only temporary relief, a limitation that spurred Janet, Breuer, Freud, and Dubois to seek deeper dynamic or rational approaches. Expanded from Bernheim's 1884 study De la suggestion dans l'état hypnotique et dans l'état de veille into the comprehensive 1886 volume.
Date type
Publication year
Sources
- Internet Archive: Suggestive Therapeutics: A Treatise on the Nature and Uses of Hypnotism by H. Bernheim(primary or catalogue record)
- Bibliothèque nationale de France (Gallica): De la suggestion et de ses applications à la thérapeutique (1886)(primary or catalogue record)
- (link to this entry)
Frederik van Eeden and Albert van Renterghem open a clinic for hypnotic suggestion in Amsterdam
In 1887, Dutch physicians Frederik van Eeden and Albert Willem van Renterghem opened a clinic in Amsterdam using hypnotic suggestion. Van Eeden later described their work as following the approach of Ambroise-Auguste Liébeault of Nancy. Van Renterghem presented a statistical report on their treatment at a hypnotism congress in Paris in 1889.
Van Renterghem (1906): L’évolution de la psychothérapie en Hollande, Revue de l’Hypnotisme
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Why it matters
The clinic was an early Dutch centre for treatment using psychological methods. Its founders later used the term psychotherapy to describe and discuss their work.
In psychotherapy and counselling
The physicians used hypnotic suggestion in their clinical practice. Their historical case reports record their own observations and do not by themselves establish treatment effectiveness.
Important context and scope
Their work formed part of a late nineteenth-century discussion about hypnotism, suggestion and the meaning of psychotherapy. Van Renterghem later dated the Amsterdam clinic’s opening to 15 August 1887.
Date type
Institutional or policy milestone
Sources
- Van Renterghem (1906): L’évolution de la psychothérapie en Hollande, Revue de l’Hypnotisme(primary or catalogue record)
- Van Eeden (1892): Het beginsel der psycho-therapie, De Nieuwe Gids(primary or catalogue record)
- (link to this entry)
Pierre Janet publishes L'Automatisme psychologique on dissociation and subconscious fixed ideas
In L'Automatisme psychologique, Pierre Janet described clinical cases and proposed that overwhelming experiences could disrupt mental synthesis, leaving ideas outside ordinary awareness. These were his historical interpretations of the cases, not established explanations of every dissociative symptom.
Bibliothèque nationale de France (Gallica): L'Automatisme psychologique by Pierre Janet (1889)
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Why it matters
Janet's case studies and account of dissociation influenced later thinking about trauma and psychotherapy. They do not by themselves establish a general mechanism of symptoms or the effectiveness of a treatment.
In psychotherapy and counselling
Janet described using psychological analysis and hypnotic suggestion in individual cases. Later writers have connected his work with phase-oriented approaches to trauma treatment, which developed over time.
Important context and scope
Janet's work was eclipsed for much of the mid-twentieth century by Freudian psychoanalysis, which replaced dissociation with active repression and conflict, before being rediscovered by trauma researchers in the late twentieth century. Submitted as Janet's doctoral dissertation at the Sorbonne and published by Félix Alcan in Paris in 1889.
Date type
Publication year
Sources
- Bibliothèque nationale de France (Gallica): L'Automatisme psychologique by Pierre Janet (1889)(primary or catalogue record)
- PubMed: van der Kolk and van der Hart (1989) Pierre Janet and the breakdown of adaptation in psychological trauma(scholarly or historical account)
- American Psychiatric Association Publishing: historical discussion of Janet’s case of Marie(scholarly or historical account)
Related
Psychoanalysis, talking cures & early schools · 1895 to 1939
Psychoanalysis, rational persuasion, psychological clinics, individual and analytical psychology, psychodrama, play technique, character analysis, and early cultural critiques.
Humanistic, behavioural & group turns · 1940 to 1969
Client-centred counselling, existential logotherapy, Gestalt therapy, group analysis, therapeutic communities, systematic desensitisation, attachment theory, and early cognitive therapy.
Cognitive, systemic, feminist & outcome research · 1970 to 1989
Manualised cognitive and interpersonal therapies, structural and Milan systemic family models, feminist and relational perspectives, meta-analysis, and the working alliance.
Third-wave, narrative, trauma & evidence movements · 1990 to 2009
Narrative and solution-focused therapies, motivational interviewing, trauma staging, DBT, ACT, MBCT, schema and mentalization models, multicultural competencies, and evidence-based practice.
Pluralism, digital care & global mental health · 2010 to present
Pluralistic and transdiagnostic frameworks, alliance rupture-repair research, internet-delivered and remote therapy, community task-sharing trials, and shared decision-making.
About this timeline and its sources
This chronology brings together 125 selected milestones across the history of psychotherapy and psychological counselling. It traces moral treatment and early hypnosis, psychoanalysis and psychodynamic schools, humanistic and existential practice, behavioural and cognitive therapies, systemic and relational work, third-wave contextual models, common-factors and outcome research, and global community-based interventions.
Dates record different kinds of historical evidence. A book or treatment manual date marks when a text appeared in print, not a single moment when a therapeutic tradition began. A clinical study date marks either when research took place or when its report was published. Institutional dates record the founding of clinics, societies, training standards, or public programmes.
Historical influence is distinct from clinical evidence. Many foundational works relied on clinical case descriptions, philosophical synthesis, or retrospective institutional accounts rather than controlled outcome trials. Where later research, replication work, or cultural critique has qualified an early claim, the entry context notes those boundaries explicitly.
This site is an educational draft within the Therapy101 reference family. It provides historical and conceptual orientation only, with no medical advice, diagnostic tools, or personalised treatment recommendations. Text size and sidebar preferences are stored locally in your browser.