The Moral Foundation of Genuine Psychotherapy

Recently, my friend, British psychiatrist Bob Johnson (http //www. truthtrustconsent.com), gave me a copy of Samuel Tuke s 1813 treatise Description of the Retreat An Institution Near York for Insane Persons of the Society of Friends (Tuke, 1996). Tuke clearly opposed the then commonplace use of restraint, except under direst circumstances  

Except in the case of violent mania, which is far from being a frequent occurrence at the Retreat, coercion, when requisite, is considered as a necessary evil that is, it is thought abstractly to have a tendency to retard the cure, by opposing the influence of the moral remedies employed, (p. 166) 

Why was violent mania infrequent at the Retreat According to Tuke, it is partly because the staff were taught not to provoke the inmates into reacting with violence. 

Moral treatment appeals to the remaining free will, or moral powers, of the individual  

Insane persons generally possess a degree of control over their wayward propensities. Their intellectual, active, and moral powers, are usually rather perverted than obliterated and it happens, not unfre-quently, that one faculty only is affected. The disorder is sometimes still more partial and can only be detected by erroneous views, on one particular subject. On all others, the mind appears to retain its wonted correctness  

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