Psychology is a relatively recent area of research and treatment for “inner” emotional problems, with Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) creating his famous brand of psychoanalysis in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. William James (1842-1910) is an American philosopher who favoured pragmatic psychology as a way of explaining the mind. Other well-known leaders in the field are Carl Jung, Otto Rank, R.D. Laing, Fritz Perls, Wilhelm Reich, Erich Fromm, Pierre Janet, and Alfred Adler.
Depth forms of therapy, sometimes known as psychodynamic therapy, consider past events in a person’s life from a causal perspective. They rely on in-clinic experience, and the close relationship between the analyst and the analysand. Cognitive behavioural therapies (CBT) rely more on evidence-based research, and involve retraining of clients’ thought processes, emotions and behaviour, without the necessity to recover repressed memories from the past