Atlas›Domains›Domain XVI
Domain XVI of XVI

Historical, discredited & harmful

98guides
1,890weighted interventions
1895median founding year
295912mean Agape · Logos · Mythos

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Domain synthesis

What "healing" means here

This domain holds the widest spread of conceptions of healing in the atlas, and many of them are reported only to be rejected. In ancient and religious settings, healing meant finding and removing an afflicting agent, then purifying and protecting the person: Mesopotamian āšipu and asû texts aim to identify the "hand of" a god, ghost or sorcerer and expel it XVI-001, and early-modern exorcists held that illness lifted when a spiritual agent was driven out XVI-012 XVI-108. Elsewhere healing was an encounter with sacred power: the god appearing in a dream at Epidaurus XVI-004 XVI-002, the anointed monarch's touch XVI-014, the saint's relic XVI-015. A third family treats healing as restored order or balance: Pythagorean harmony of the soul XVI-005, Galenic and humoral rebalancing XVI-010 XVI-013 XVI-019, and al-Razi's reason governing the passions XVI-011. Asylum medicine added healing as a jolt that breaks a disordered state XVI-021 XVI-022 XVI-025 XVI-026, and later as a calm, ordered environment XVI-028 XVI-030 XVI-031. Twentieth-century somatic treatments framed cure as destroying or resetting diseased tissue or patterns XVI-048 XVI-050 XVI-051 XVI-053. In conversion practices, "healing" meant bringing a person's orientation or gender into line with a norm XVI-063 XVI-066 XVI-074 XVI-078, and eugenic programmes put "betterment" in the population rather than in the person XVI-058 XVI-059 XVI-060. In some regimes the guides say the aim was control rather than recovery XVI-018 XVI-104.

There are open tensions. Historians disagree on whether asylum water treatments were therapy or restraint XVI-041. Dols and Ragab read the bimaristan differently XVI-010. The entries on Lilienfeld's list of potentially harmful therapies are disputed on both sides XVI-091 XVI-092 XVI-096, and "gender exploratory therapy" is described in its proponents' terms and its critics' terms XVI-073. De Martino reads tarantism as a collective way of handling crisis, not as poisoning XVI-017.

What "the self" or "the person" is here

The images of the person vary as much as the ideas of cure. Ancient and religious sources picture a person open to gods, ghosts, demons and saints XVI-001 XVI-012 XVI-015 XVI-108, or a soul whose harmony mirrors the cosmos XVI-005. Humoral medicine sees a body of four fluids whose balance shapes mood XVI-013 XVI-019. Islamic physician-philosophers picture a reasoning soul that should rule the passions XVI-011. Reil saw madness as a breaking-up of the rational self XVI-026. Nineteenth-century nerve theory describes a body with a limited store of "nerve force" that modern life drains XVI-038 XVI-040, or one whose pelvic organs act on the brain by reflex XVI-042. Phrenology divided the mind into organs of the brain XVI-033. These images are often gendered: the rest cure for women and the camp cure for men XVI-037 XVI-038.

Twentieth-century images are more mechanical. Cameron's depatterning treated the mind as something that could be erased and rewritten XVI-053. Steinach located desire in gland tissue XVI-069. Reich held that the body stores feeling as muscular "armour" and lacks "orgone" in illness XVI-079. The Center for Feeling Therapy assumed a "true" self of feeling under socialisation XVI-084. Attachment-therapy proponents pictured a child whose suppressed rage blocks bonding XVI-087. Eugenic and Ariosophist doctrines treated the person mainly as a carrier of heredity or "race" XVI-058 XVI-059 XVI-062. Breatharian and ritual-castration teachings treat the body as something spirit should rise above or purify XVI-100 XVI-106.

Mechanisms of change the domain names

Expulsion and purification. Healers named the change mechanism as driving out a spirit XVI-001 XVI-012 XVI-078 XVI-108, evacuating a corrupt humour XVI-013, or surgically removing a hidden infection XVI-052. Aristotle's katharsis, read medically by Bernays and then by Breuer and Freud, is a purgation of emotion XVI-006. Attachment-holding and expressive-experiential approaches drew on similar release ideas XVI-087 XVI-093.

Sacred encounter and conferred power. Change came from the god's dream visit XVI-004 XVI-002, the God-given power of the sovereign XVI-014, the relic as a link between heaven and earth XVI-015, or a penitence meant to turn aside divine judgement XVI-016.

Order, harmony and environment. Music was held to order the soul XVI-005 XVI-017. Regimen adjusted diet, sleep and bathing XVI-010 XVI-043. The milieu, occupation, light and architecture were thought to calm the mind XVI-028 XVI-029 XVI-030.

Shock, fear and the sublime. Rotation, drenching and the surprise bath were meant to overwhelm or "break" a fixed idea XVI-021 XVI-022 XVI-024 XVI-025. Reil started with strong stimuli XVI-026, and later deterrence programmes relied on fear XVI-101 XVI-102.

Destruction and regrowth. Sakel's "annihilating assault" was supposed to let dormant cells take over XVI-048. Meduna proposed an antagonism between seizures and schizophrenia XVI-049. Freeman sought to blunt over-intense emotion XVI-050, and Cameron sought to erase patterns before rebuilding them XVI-053.

Learning, suggestion and developmental repair. Aversive and imagined conditioning XVI-063 XVI-064, reinforcement of "sex-role" behaviour XVI-071 and hypnotic suggestion XVI-067 XVI-036 were each claimed to redirect desire or behaviour. Reparative and psychoanalytic theories pointed to a deficit in early parenting XVI-065 XVI-066.

Breakdown through the group. Confrontation, humiliation and peer pressure were meant to break resistance XVI-082 XVI-083 XVI-084. Coercive deprogramming claimed that confinement would restore free choice XVI-089.

Recovered material. Proponents held that uncovering repressed abuse memories XVI-085 or eliciting alters XVI-092 would bring healing. FC claimed to unlock hidden expression XVI-086.

Shared techniques

Ritual. Ritual dominates the ancient and religious entries: purification, offering and sleeping in the sanctuary XVI-001 XVI-004, royal ceremony XVI-014, pilgrimage XVI-015 XVI-017 and procession XVI-016. In harmful forms it shows up as initiation XVI-098 XVI-099 XVI-100.

Touch. Touch appears as the royal laying-on of hands XVI-014, magnetic passes XVI-035, physical facilitation XVI-086 and coercive holding XVI-087.

Voice and sound. Sound runs from Pythagorean melody and the pizzica XVI-005 XVI-017 to Cameron's replayed recorded messages XVI-053.

Movement. The tarantella dance XVI-017, the rough outdoor life of the West cure XVI-038, military drill XVI-102 and forced rotation XVI-021 XVI-023 all used movement.

Imagery and dream. Dream and imagery are used in incubation XVI-004, Stewart's Senoi dream control XVI-088 and covert sensitisation XVI-064.

Story and word. Words work through al-Razi's reflection XVI-011, Burton's compendium XVI-019, Dix's "I tell what I have seen" XVI-031 and direct interpretation XVI-080.

Relationship and community. Relationship and community are used humanely in moral treatment and Geel family care XVI-028 XVI-015, and coercively in support groups, residential programmes and peer groups XVI-074 XVI-075 XVI-082 XVI-095.

Breath and attention. These appear mainly as cautions. Relaxation can set off panic in some clients XVI-096, Bates relied on relaxing eye "strain" XVI-044, and breatharians claim to live on air or light XVI-106.

Developmental or stage models

The sequenced models come mostly from the historical practitioners:

  • The Mesopotamian sequence was diagnose, remove, purify, then protect XVI-001.
  • Burton's cures move from rejecting "unlawful" cures to lawful ones XVI-019.
  • Reil graded stimuli from strong, frightening ones to more specific ones XVI-026.
  • Battie split madness into "original" and "consequential" kinds with different outlooks XVI-027.
  • Sakel and Cameron both used a destroy-then-rebuild sequence XVI-048 XVI-053.
  • Homosexuals Anonymous adapted "14 steps" XVI-075.
  • Elan ran fixed programmes of 24 to 30 months XVI-083.

Current frameworks cited include the ISSTD phase-oriented DID model XVI-092 and NICE's three-component bereavement-support model XVI-091.

Historians also describe institutional arcs. Curative asylums became custodial ones XVI-030 XVI-031. Flagellant penance went from approval in 1260 to condemnation in 1349 XVI-016. Rotation devices rose and fell as a fashion XVI-022 XVI-023. Rites of joining mark entry into a group XVI-098 XVI-099.

Distinctive contribution

This domain is the atlas's record of how theories of change have justified harm. It shows coercion, missing consent, iatrogenic effects and harm done by states, all stated in their proponents' own terms and set against later evidence and human-rights findings XVI-047 XVI-060 XVI-061 XVI-063. It also changes the clinician's role: from delivering a method to historical literacy, recognising a practice, safeguarding and repairing harm with survivors and families XVI-018 XVI-051 XVI-104 XVI-108.

All 98 guides in this domain

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