Publicación considerada como el libro más importante sobre la psicoterapia en lo que va de siglo (eso se dice): “El gran debate de la psicoterapia” de Wampold, Bruce; Imel,Zac. (2021). En esta obra, los autores nos ofrecen, como una parte de su investigación, un aproximación al nacimiento de la psicoterapia moderna en Estados Unidos (s.XIX) y su relación con la “ciencia”.

 A finales del s.XIX, el modelo médico dominante afirmaba que en la causa de todos los “trastornos mentales” había que descartar cualquier factor mental o emocional. Los trastornos mentales sólo podían estar causados por algún proceso fisioquímico, aunque no haya prueba de ésto.

 Sin embargo, el libro recoge tres fenómenos que en el s.XIX ya ponían en cuestión este parecer “científico” sobre la “patología mental”:

• La neurastenia: fue una de esas enfermedades de moda que después desaparecen o se renombran, o pasan a formar parte de una nueva “patología”. Lo que en este momento interesa, no es la historia de la neurastenia, es el hecho de que había cientos de tratamientos para esta enfermedad y muchos de ellos, aunque muy disimilares, resultaron ser eficaces tratando esta patología. La conclusión, sólo podía ser que lo común en tantos tratamientos diferentes y, al mismo tiempo, eficaces tenía que ser alguna causa o factor psicológico.

• Columna vertebral del ferrocarril: la llegada del ferrocarril trajo un tipo nuevo de accidentes y con ellos un nuevo tipo de lesiones relacionadas con la columna vertebral y el sistema nervioso central. Hasta aquí todo normal, pero lo curioso está en el hecho de que muchos de los testigos de estos accidentes, sufrían los mismos síntomas que los accidentados de verdad. Un fenómeno que descartaba que todo síntoma físico o de enfermedad tuviera que tener necesariamente un origen orgánico.

• La Ciencia Cristiana: fundada por Mary Baker Eddy (1821-1910), llegó a ser un fenómeno de masas. La Ciencia Cristiana entiende que hay una relación entre nuestra forma de vida, nuestros pensamientos con la aparición de la enfermedad. Por tanto, la curación espiritual puede curar al enfermo.

 Ante la realidad de las curaciones por el “espíritu” el colectivo de la ciencia se dividió en dos. En un lado se situaron los partidarios de prohibir cualquier práctica terapéutica a toda persona ajena a la medicina oficial. Esta opinión quedó bien reflejada en las palabras de uno de los médicos más destacados de la época, John K. Mitchell (1798-1858), que se pronunció de esta forma: "Deberíamos insistir muy seriamente en que el tratamiento de un paciente, ya sea quirúrgico, médico o psíquico, debería estar, por la seguridad del público, en manos de un médico".

 Sin embargo, también surgió el interés por la curación por el espíritu y su estudio desde el campo de la psicología experimental. En 1894, el psicólogo William James(1842-1910) explicaba, que si el fenómeno existe hay que estudiarlo y no prohibirlo. Y ante la eficacia de la terapia por la palabra y de la curación por el “espíritu”, se opuso a la prohibición de estas prácticas: “'Lo que el verdadero interés de la medicina requiere' (...) 'es que la terapéutica mental no sea erradicada, sino estudiada, y que sus leyes sean averiguadas'”

 Desde el nacimiento de la psicoterapia contemporánea, y como se refleja en “El gran debate de la psicoterapia”, ha existido una tensión entre el mundo de la medicina oficial, el de la “ciencia”, y la psicoterapia. En la Europa del s. XVIII este desencuentro se manifestó en la persecución de Mesmer y del mesmerismo. Hoy, este conflicto se expresa en los constantes a ataques a la psicoterapia tachándola de pseudo-ciencia o pseudo-terapia. De nuevo, existe más interés en prohibir una práctica que en estudiar los factores que explican su eficacia.

 La RAE define la consciencia como “la capacidad de reconocer la realidad circundante”. Y no me cabe duda, que este ataque por parte de “expertos”, “verificadores”, “periodistas” y “autoridades sanitarias” a la psicoterapia ha agudizado mi capacidad de “reconocer la realidad circundante”. Vivo en un mundo donde puede más la promoción de las mercancías que fabrican las farmacéuticas que la salud de las personas.

 El camino del autoconocimiento continua. Soy consciente de que mi alma está fragmentada, es un sistema. También los libros me ayudaron a reconocer a cada pedazo, a trabajar de forma conjunta con esos fragmentos y nos ayudaron a ponernos de acuerdo para avanzar en la misma dirección.

 Greetings to #Humanitas, this is my first post in this dedicated community in the human sciences and I appreciate the opportunity to participate in it. I am grateful to my dear Felix, both for introducing me to this community and for inviting me to participate in the "Creativity, the Book, and Consciousness" initiative. In which, during the month of the book, some guiding questions are suggested to us.

 What is creativity for you and how does it manifest in
 your life?
 Do you like books?
 What has been your favorite book and why?
 How important is consciousness to you?
 Where does it come from?
 Is there a relationship between
 creativity, consciousness, and the book?

Link

 I invite to participate in this proposal @janaveda
@fragozar01, @helicreamarket, @karelysk89, @nabu.doconosor2,
@yuruanyr23 , @manclar, @bulkathos and @cositav.

---

 In the publication I present, I have tried to find the relationship between consciousness, books, and creativity within my own lifeline.

AWARENESS OF MY INNER WORLD

 Books have been/are, since my adolescence, a part of those plots that have been shaping my mind, my way of seeing and understanding the world (the external). Being very present, both in my outward journey, as they have been (and are) in my inward journey.

 I was fortunate that curiosity, the hunger for knowledge, and the opening of the, then called, Reina Sofia Art Center (1986), now known as the Reina Sofia National Museum of Art coincided in time.

 In the late 80s and early 90s, I was lucky (a 16-year-old boy was lucky) to be able to visit and contemplate several art exhibitions that passed through the Reina Sofia, with a common theme: the European avant-gardes of the early 20th century. In these exhibitions, I encountered the surrealist movement, dada, the Soviet avant-garde, the Italian futurists, etc.

 It is not easy for me to explain the shock I felt at the proposals of dada and the surrealists. A new and unknown world opened up to my curiosity: the unconscious.

 I soon acquired a complete works of Freud. Second hand, and poorly bound, this collection turned out to be a set of libertarian pages that, at the slightest opportunity, detached from the spine to follow their own path. Despite these inconveniences, a journey was beginning. My disagreements with Freud led me to the dissidents of psychoanalysis, and they led me to start my personal analysis, at the age of 26, in a very heterodox school: Alexander Lowen's Bioenergetic Analysis, in turn a disciple of Wilhelm Reich (1897-1957).

 I followed W. Reich for a few years. Although the teenager who visited the Reina Sofia with the same enthusiasm as a child enters a toy store had already left, I felt fascination for Reich's pulsating world for a time. A universe full of Prana, battles against UFOs, and, above all, faith in life captivated me for a while. Two books stand out from those past times: "The Function of the Orgasm" (1955) and "The Bio-Pathology of Cancer" (1948).

 W. Reich, then, became a reference for a few years, then others came, and then I remained (apparently) alone. Carving my own path.

 What started as an inner quest, my personal analysis, unintentionally transformed into a didactic analysis that lasted about five years. I was training as a psychotherapist without seeking it.

 Consulting the Dictionary of the Royal Academy of the Spanish Language (RAE), one of the meanings of consciousness is as follows: "Psychic faculty by which a subject perceives himself in the world." I have no doubt that the knowledge of my inner world, of my system, has changed, and is changing, my perception of my place in the world.

 In this never-ending journey, undoubtedly, some books have been/are excellent companions.

 At the age of 28, I began the **psychology** career, a legal requirement to practice psychotherapy. Soon, very soon, the career became a mystery. What relationship could exist between academic psychology and psychotherapy? My current answer is: none. If I had to refine my answer, I would say that psychotherapy has no relationship with the mainstream current within current academic psychology.

 Once again it was books, not university ones, but others, that shed light on the relationship between academic psychology, the fashionable medical model, and psychotherapy.

 Walking down the aisle of one of those old bookstores in Madrid, I came across, or it found me, the "Correspondence: Freud-Zweig." It was my years of reading Freud. At that time, I had no idea who this Zweig person could be, but reading these letters was a sufficient reason to start reading one of his works. Among them was "The Healing Power of the Spirit." A book that I read at the time as entertainment, but during my time at university, it took on another (all its) meaning.

 Stefan Zweig captured in that publication, very accurately, the sources of psychotherapy as we understand it today. Showing its origins outside the laboratory and medical books and practices. The birth of modern psychotherapy can be traced back to Mesmer and Christian Science. To hypnosis and +suggestion*. Ideas that may seem strange, but are revisited in a recent publication about the effectiveness of psychotherapy.

 Publication considered as the most important book on psychotherapy in the current century (so it is said): *"The Great Psychotherapy Debate"* by **Wampold, Bruce; Imel, Zac.** (2021). In this work, the authors offer us, as part of their research, an approach to the birth of modern psychotherapy in the United States (19th century) and its relationship with "science."

 By the end of the 19th century, the dominant medical model asserted that in the cause of all "mental disorders," any mental or emotional factor had to be ruled out. Mental disorders could only be caused by some physiochemical process, even though there is no evidence of this.

 However, the book gathers three phenomena that by the 19th century were already questioning this "scientific" view on "mental pathology":

-Neurasthenia: it was one of those trendy diseases that later disappear or get renamed, or become part of another new "pathology." What matters at this moment is not the history of neurasthenia, but the fact that there were hundreds of treatments for this disease and many of them, although very dissimilar, turned out to be effective in treating this pathology. The conclusion could only be that the common factor in so many different and, at the same time, effective treatments had to be some psychological cause or factor.

-Railway spine: the arrival of the railroad brought about a new type of accidents and with them a new type of injuries related to the spine and the central nervous system. So far, everything was normal, but the curious thing was that many of the witnesses to these accidents suffered the same symptoms as the real victims. A phenomenon that ruled out that every physical symptom or disease necessarily had an organic origin.

-Christian Science: founded by Mary Baker Eddy (1821-1910), became a mass phenomenon. Christian Science understands that there is a relationship between our way of life, our thoughts, and the onset of disease. Therefore, spiritual healing can cure the sick.

 Faced with the reality of healings by the "spirit," the scientific community split into two. On one side were those in favor of banning any therapeutic practice to anyone outside of official medicine. This view was well reflected in the words of one of the most prominent doctors of the time, John K. Mitchell (1798-1858), who stated: "We should very seriously insist that the treatment of a patient, whether surgical, medical, or psychic, should, for the safety of the public, be in the hands of a physician".

 However, there was also an interest in spiritual healing and its study from the field of experimental psychology. In 1894, psychologist William James (1842-1910) explained that if the phenomenon exists, it should be studied and not prohibited. Faced with the efficacy of therapy through words and spiritual healing, he opposed the prohibition of these practices: "'What the true interest of medicine requires' (...) 'is that mental therapeutics not be eradicated, but studied, and its laws ascertained'".

 Since the birth of contemporary psychotherapy, and as reflected in "The Great Psychotherapy Debate," there has been tension between the world of official medicine, that of "science," and psychotherapy. In 18th-century Europe, this disagreement manifested in the persecution of Mesmer and mesmerism. Today, this conflict is expressed in constant attacks on psychotherapy, labeling it as pseudoscience or pseudo-therapy. Once again, there is more interest in banning a practice than in studying the factors that explain its efficacy.

 The Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) defines consciousness as "the ability to recognize the surrounding reality." And I have no doubt that this attack by "experts," "fact checkers," "journalists," and "health authorities" on psychotherapy has sharpened my ability to "recognize the surrounding reality." I live in a world where promoting the goods produced by pharmaceutical companies takes precedence over people's health.

 The journey of self-awareness continues. I am aware that my soul is fragmented, it is a system. Books also helped me recognize each piece, to work together with those fragments, and to come to an agreement to move in the same direction.