Volume 56, Issue 2 p. 75-98
ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Practicing mind-body medicine before Freud: John G. Gehring, the “Wizard of the Androscoggin”

Ben Harris

Corresponding Author

Ben Harris

Department of Psychology, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH

Correspondence Ben Harris, University of New Hampshire, 15 Academic Way, Durham 03824, NH.

Email: Ben.Harris@unh.edu

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Courtney J. Stevens

Courtney J. Stevens

Department of Psychiatry, Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, One Medical Center Drive, Lebanon, NH

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First published: 14 October 2019
Citations: 1

Abstract

This article describes the psychotherapy practice of physician John G. Gehring and places it in historical context. Forgotten today, Gehring was a highly sought-after therapist from the 1890s to the 1920s by prominent figures in the arts, sciences, business, and law. He practiced a combination of work therapy, suggestion, and autosuggestion that has similarities to Cognitive Behavior Therapy and Behavioral Activation. Using biographies, memoirs, and archival records, the details of Gehring's work are reconstructed and the reasons for its success are analyzed. His invisibility in the history of psychiatry is attributed to the later dominance of Freudianism within the field.

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