<P> In an informal sense, psychotherapy can be said to have been practiced through the ages, as individuals received psychological counsel and reassurance from others . Purposeful, theoretically - based psychotherapy was probably first developed in the Middle East during the 9th century by the Persian physician and psychological thinker, Rhazes, who was at one time the chief physician of the Baghdad bimaristan . In the West, however, serious mental disorders were generally treated as demonic or medical conditions requiring punishment and confinement until the advent of moral treatment approaches in the 18th century . This brought about a focus on the possibility of psychosocial intervention - including reasoning, moral encouragement and group activities - to rehabilitate the "insane". </P> <P> In the 19th century, one could have his or her head examined, literally, using phrenology, the study of the shape of the skull developed by respected anatomist Franz Joseph Gall . Other popular treatments included physiognomy--the study of the shape of the face--and mesmerism, developed by Franz Anton Mesmer--designed to relieve psychological distress by the use of magnets . Spiritualism and Phineas Quimby's "mental healing" technique that was very like modern concept of "positive visualization" were also popular . </P> <P> While the scientific community eventually came to reject all of these methods, academic psychologists also were not concerned with serious forms of mental illness . That area was already being addressed by the developing fields of psychiatry and neurology within the asylum movement and the use of moral therapy . It wasn't until the end of the 19th century, around the time when Sigmund Freud was first developing his "talking cure" in Vienna, that the first scientifically clinical application of psychology began--at the University of Pennsylvania, to help children with learning disabilities . </P> <P> Although clinical psychologists originally focused on psychological assessment, the practice of psychotherapy, once the sole domain of psychiatrists, became integrated into the profession after the Second World War . Psychotherapy began with the practice of psychoanalysis, the "talking cure" developed by Sigmund Freud . Soon afterwards, theorists such as Alfred Adler and Carl Jung began to introduce new conceptions about psychological functioning and change . These and many other theorists helped to develop the general orientation now called psychodynamic therapy, which includes the various therapies based on Freud's essential principle of making the unconscious conscious . </P>

Who is credited with being the first person to use talking therapy