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and its therapeutic applications until his death.
Freud had resisted leaving Vienna even after the Nazis occupied the city. Finally, under threat of death and after large sums of money had been paid to the Nazis, Freud and his family moved to London in 1938. He had suffered from cancer of the jaw for many years. He died on September 23, 1939.
FREUD’S IMPACT ON PSYCHOLOGY
FREUD’S IMPACT ON PSYCHOLOGY AS A MENTAL HEALTH PROFESSION 107
on a more scientific basis led to greater success in the treatment of some diseases and raised the status of medicine in American society. These results were reciprocal with changes in medical education, especially at new institutions like the Johns Hopkins University medical school.
For alienists, these changes and reforms only highlighted the increasing distance between their specialty and mainstream medicine.
A new generation of leaders among the alienists began to change the name of their spe- cialty to psychiatry. They sought to modernize their field by aligning themselves with some of the new medical specialties, such as pathology.
It was in this spirit that some leaders of the new psychiatry invited experimental psycholo- gists to be staff members of asylums. This was a new opportunity for psychologists, who brought their skills in mental assessments and laboratory science to research on mental disorders and their treatments.
Perhaps most importantly, the crisis in psychi- atry helped create an atmosphere of receptivity to psychological theories of mental disorders and to treatments based in those theories. Thus, by the time Freud visited America in 1909, there was both a scientific and cultural opening in North America for psychological ideas and treatments.
Psychologists, Psychoanalysis, and Mental Health in America
The development of psychotherapy in the United States has a complex history. American psy- chotherapeutics emerged in the 1890s and the early years of the 20th century. Taylor (1999;
2000) has shown that the sources for psychother- apeutics, as it was known then, were a rich mix of ideas and practices. One source was the French clinical tradition, includingCharcot and Janet and the work of Alfred Binet, Th´eodule Ribot, and Bernheim, among others. American sources included mental science, mind cures,
and psychical research, as we documented in Chapter 4, as well as contributions from neu- rology, psychiatry, and a new field pioneered by James, experimental psychopathology. Freud and psychoanalysis, introduced to America by James in the mid-1890s, also began to be in- fluential in the first two decades of the 20th century.
The geographical center for these develop- ments was Boston, Massachusetts. The Boston School of Psychotherapy, as it came to be called, was a group of loosely affiliated men from vari- ous professions. James, of course, was prominent.
Other physicians included James Jackson Put- nam, Morton Prince, RichardCabot, and Henry Bowditch; all of these men were engaged in the private practice of psychotherapy in the Boston area, in addition to practicing their regular medical specialties. Psychologists were also involved. Boris Sidis (1867–1923), who earned his PhD under James in experimental psychopathology, wrote one of the early and most important books on abnormal states, The Psychology of Suggestion (1898). He then went on to earn his MD, developed a large pri- vate practice, and continued to write extensively about exceptional mental states. Louville Eugene Emerson earned his PhD at Harvard University in 1909 and then spent the rest of his ca- reer providing psychotherapy in both hospital and private practice settings. Another key figure in the Boston School was Elwood Worcester, the rector of EmmanuelChurch (Episcopal). In 1906, together with his assistant, Samuel Mc- Comb and several physician members of the Boston School, Worcester began holding meet- ings open to anyone who wanted help with moral or psychological problems. The program was highly successful in attracting and treating many Bostonians. It became known as the Emmanuel Movement and spread to several cities across North America. It drew upon the theoretical and clinical ideas of the Boston School, as well as the older indigenous ideas of New Thought
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and mental therapeutics. Today it is primarily considered the forerunner of pastoral counsel- ing, but more importantly for our chapter, the Emmanuel Movement was critical for making lit- erate Americans aware of the new phenomenon of psychotherapy.
Thus, when Freud visited the United States in 1909, there was already an emergent body of psychological ideas and practices. A few psychologists had begun to work in medical settings, providing a small range of services.
Most of these psychologists engaged in research as part of the effort by progressive psychiatrists to modernize the asylums. Some also offered psychotherapy, as we saw in the case of Sidis and Emerson. It was also in this era that a few psychologists began to offer diagnostic assessments of intelligence and psychopathology.
Psychologist Shepherd Ivory Franz (1874–
1933) was among the first psychologists to work in an asylum setting. After earning his PhD at Columbia University in 1899 and then teaching in a medical school, he took a newly created position at McLean Hospital, a private asylum, from 1904 to 1907. While there, he conducted one of the first studies to demonstrate the therapeutic effect of exercise on depression. In 1907, he moved to Washington, DC, where he held a joint appointment at George Washington University and what was then called the Government Hospital for the Insane, now St. Elizabeth’s Hospital.
While Franz was at the Government Hospital, the medical superintendent, William Alanson
FIGURE 5.6 Danvers State Hospital, where Grace Kent served as a psychologist
White, introduced psychoanalytic theory and treatment. One of Franz’s graduate students at George Washington University, Grace Kent (1875–1973), did her doctoral work at the hospital, where she modified a word association test that had been developed by Jung to detect psychological complexes in asylum patients.
The Kent-Rosanoff Test, as it came to be called because of her collaboration on the project with psychiatrist A. J. Rosanoff, was an effective, if time-consuming, tool for detecting patterns of disturbed cognition. (Kent’s involvement in this work is indicative of the growing number of women in mental health work and applied psychology more generally, which became widespread after World War I; see Chapter 6).
Kent spent her entire career in clinical settings.
Not only was she influential through the use of her Kent-Rosanoff Test, but she also mentored several psychologists who transformed clinical psychology into its modern-day form, including David Shakow (1901–1981).
Franz’s replacement at McLean was Frederic Lyman Wells (1884–1964). Wells spent his career as a psychologist working in clinical settings, first at McLean and then for many years at the Boston Psychopathic Hospital. He became one of the most important individuals in the development of what is currently termed clinical psychology. An urbane, witty, articulate man, Wells was known for his keen grasp of the experimental method in psychology and his clinical abilities with patients. Wells also came to have a deep appreciation for and understanding of psychoanalysis. During the 1910s, he wrote nearly annual reports on progress in psychoanal- ysis in American psychology. In his work as an author and as a clinician, Wells kept psychoana- lytic ideas and practices before psychologists and was influential in the application of psychology to mental health problems. In addition, he wrote influential books on mental adjustments and mental testing that served the new field of clinical psychology.
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