Abstract

SAMPSON, ANTHONY. PSYCHOTHERAPY AS A CULTURAL ARTIFACT. Rev. colomb. psiquiatria [online]. 2001, vol.30, n.4, pp.359-368. ISSN 0034-7450.

Regardless of its facade, psychotherapy is common to the entire humankind. In the Western word market, there are now hundreds of therapies available. A good number of them, if not all, may be due to the Freudian contagion, predicted by the father of psychoanalysis himself. Even though Freud believed he had created a scientific psychotherapy, he never pretended his invention was the only possible therapy. The scientific nature of psychoanalysis has been severely questioned in the last decades. However, there are no criteria about how a scientific psychotherapy should be. The diversity of ethnotherapies, both ancient, modern and in current premodern society, in undeniable. Instead of repudiating them as prescientific -as there is no standard of demarcation- it would be reasonable to study these therapies, in order to clarify their innner logic.

Keywords : Psychotherapy; Ethopsychology.

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