Catharsis in Healing, Ritual and Drama

By T.J. Scheff

From the preface: “About nine years ago, after a decade of research on mental hospitals, I became convinced by the flaws I saw in existing programs that any system of treatment would be incomplete if it were based entirely upon professional therapists. Such a system, I thought, would need to be augmented by the development of a large group of lay therapists. These therapists would be trained and supervised by professionals. I had in mind relatively brief, simple training and supervision. My thought was that lay therapists coulddeal with many of the most frequently occurring types of emotional crises. Under these conditions, mental health professionals could be used as specialists, particularly as trainers and supervisors, and as therapists only for complex, difficult, or intractable cases…”

Berkeley. University Of California Press . 1979. 246p. This book contains mark-up