Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Psychotherapy and religion: The emmanuel movement

  • Published:
Journal of Religion and Health Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

This paper reconsiders the significance of the Emmanuel movement, a pre- Freudian psychotherapeutic system founded by Dr. Elwood Worcester as a method of church-sponsored healing. Its significance lies in three areas: (1) Historically, it was a popular effort by Protestant clergy to claim religious authority over psychological and psychosomatic ailments, a struggle that the medical profession eventually won almost completely. (2) The Emmanuel movement was an effort to combat the scientific materialism and medical somaticism of its time, including the excessive use of drugs. It aimed at greater individual control over emotional wellbeing through a self-help movement taught by religious leaders using some Christian ideas. Significant parallels can be found with present-day holistic health efforts. (3) Theoretically, Worcester's conception of the “person” is of interest as an effort to construct a nonreductionist view of the interactions of body, mind, and spirit.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Powell, L.P.,The Emmanuel Movement in a New England Town. New York, G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1909, p. 53; Hale, N.G., Jr.,Freud and the Americans: The Beginnings of Psychoanalysis in the United States, 1876–1917. New York, Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  2. Baker, R.S.,The Spiritual Unrest. New York, Frederick Stokes Co., 1910 (first published 1909), p. 240.

    Google Scholar 

  3. Worcester, E.,Life's Adventure: The Story of a Varied Career. New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1932, p. 283.

    Google Scholar 

  4. Cabot, R.C., “New Phases in the Relation of the Church to Health,”The Outlook, Feb. 29, 1908,88, 9, 504–508.

    Google Scholar 

  5. op. cit., p. 115.

    Google Scholar 

  6. Worcester, E., “The Results of the Emmanuel Movement: Women and Alcohol,”Ladies' Home Journal, Jan. 1909,26, 2, 15–16, 53.

    Google Scholar 

  7. Worcester, E., and McComb S.,Body, Mind and Spirit. Boston, Marshall Jones Co., 1931, p. 187.

    Google Scholar 

  8. Yearbook of the Emmanuel Parish, Boston, “Report of the Jacoby Club,” 1910. Published by the Emmanuel Church, p. 48.

  9. Huber, R.M.,The American Idea of Success. New York, McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1971, p. 130.

    Google Scholar 

  10. Ibid., p. 124.

    Google Scholar 

  11. Ibid., p. 131.

    Google Scholar 

  12. Meyer, D.,The Positive Thinkers: Religion as Pop Psychology from Mary Baker Eddy to Oral Roberts. New York, Pantheon Books, 1980, p. 102; Braden, C.S.,Christian Science Today: Power, Policy and Practice. Dallas, Southern Methodist University Press, 1958, p. 283; Huber,op. cit., p. 143.

    Google Scholar 

  13. Bettelheim, B.,Freud and Man's Soul. New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1983. [The problem here may have been carried through to a systematic misunderstanding of Freud's categories in English-speaking countries, according to recent work by Bruno Bettelheim.]

    Google Scholar 

  14. Worcester, E., and McComb, S.,The Christian Religion as a Healing Power: A Defense and Exposition of the Emmanuel Movement. New York, Moffat, Yard and Co., 1909, Chapter 23.

    Google Scholar 

  15. Worcester and McComb,Body, Mind and Spirit, op. cit., pp. 15–16.

    Google Scholar 

  16. McComb, S., “The Religio-Medical Movements; A Reply,”North American Review, 1909,189, 640, 445–454, 451.

    Google Scholar 

  17. Worcester, E.,Making Life Better: An Application of Religion and Psychology to Human Problems. New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1933, pp. 193–194.

    Google Scholar 

  18. Worcester and McComb,The Christian Religion as a Healing Power, op. cit. pp. 64–65.

    Google Scholar 

  19. Worcester,Making Life Better: An Application of Religion and Psychology to Human Problems, op. cit., p. 195.

    Google Scholar 

  20. —, “The Results of the Emmanuel Movement: Women and Alcohol,”op. cit., p. 16.

    Google Scholar 

  21. Worcester and McComb,Body, Mind and Spirit, op. cit. p. 310.

    Google Scholar 

  22. Ibid. p. 235.

    Google Scholar 

  23. Ibid. pp. 68–70.

    Google Scholar 

  24. Ibid. p. 122.

    Google Scholar 

  25. op. cit., pp. 157–158, 314.

    Google Scholar 

  26. op. cit., p. 93.

    Google Scholar 

  27. op. cit., p. 241.

    Google Scholar 

  28. Worcester, E.; McComb, S.; and Coriat, I.,Religion and Medicine: The Moral Control of Nervous Disorders. New York, Moffat, Yard and Co., 1908, p. 176.

    Google Scholar 

  29. Ibid., p. 148.

    Google Scholar 

  30. Ibid., p. 160.

    Google Scholar 

  31. Worcester and McComb,The Christian Religion as a Healing Power, op. cit., pp. 64–65.

    Google Scholar 

  32. McComb, S., “A Reply,”Hibbert Journal, Oct. 1909,8, 10–27, 18.

    Google Scholar 

  33. Worcester,Life's Adventure: The Story of a Varied Career, op. cit. p. 25.

    Google Scholar 

  34. —,Making Life Better: An Application of Religion and Psychology to Human Problems, op. cit., p. 204.

    Google Scholar 

  35. Worcester and McComb,The Christian Religion as a Healing Power, op. cit., pp. 110–111.

    Google Scholar 

  36. Ibid., p. 104.

    Google Scholar 

  37. op. cit., p. 113.

    Google Scholar 

  38. McCarthy, K., “Early Alcoholism Treatment: The Emmanuel Movement and Richard Peabody,” forthcoming,J. Studies on Alcohol.

  39. Clinebell, H.J., Jr.,Understanding and Counseling the Alcoholic through Religion and Psychotherapy. Nashville, Abingdon Press, 1968, pp. 114–115.

    Google Scholar 

  40. Worceser, E.,The Allies of Religion. Boston, Marshall Jones Co., 1929, p. 185.

    Google Scholar 

  41. Worcester, “The Results of the Emmanuel Movement,” Part II,Ladies' Home Journal, 1908,25, 11, 7–8.

    Google Scholar 

  42. Worcester and McComb,Body, Mind and Spirit, op. cit., p. xvi.

    Google Scholar 

  43. Hamilton, A.M., “The Religio-Medical Movements,”North American Review, 1909,189, 639, 225–226.

    Google Scholar 

  44. op. cit., p. 227.

    Google Scholar 

  45. Worcester and McComb,The Christian Religion as a Healing Power, op. cit., pp. 50–51.

    Google Scholar 

  46. Worcester,Making Life Better, op. cit., p. 148.

    Google Scholar 

  47. op. cit., p. 192.

    Google Scholar 

  48. Scherzer, C.J.,The Church and Healing. Philadelphia, The Westminster Press, 1950, p. 181.

    Google Scholar 

  49. Cutten, G.B., “The Emmanuel Movement and the Church,”The Independent, 1908,65, 3130, 1228–1230, 1228.

    Google Scholar 

  50. Marshall, H.R., “Psycho-Therapeutics and Religion,”The Hibbert Journal, Jan. 1909,7, 2, 303–313.

    Google Scholar 

  51. op. cit., p. 184.

    Google Scholar 

  52. Brown, C.R.,Faith and Health. New York, Thomas Y. Crowell Co., 1910, p. 162.

    Google Scholar 

  53. Ibid., p. 150.

    Google Scholar 

  54. H.R.M., “Christian Science and the Emmanuel Movement,”The Nation, June 25, 1908,86, 575. [Probably Henry Rutgers Marshall.]

    Google Scholar 

  55. op. cit., pp. 162–163.

    Google Scholar 

  56. Douglas A.,The Feminization of American Culture. New York, Avon, 1977.

    Google Scholar 

  57. op. cit., pp. 229–231.

    Google Scholar 

  58. Ibid., p. 229.

    Google Scholar 

  59. Ibid., pp. 237–238.

    Google Scholar 

  60. Cannon, I.,On the Social Frontier of Medicine: Pioneering in Medical Social Service. Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1952.

    Google Scholar 

  61. op. cit., p. 139.

    Google Scholar 

  62. Ibid., p. 139.

    Google Scholar 

  63. Greene, J.G., “The Emmanuel Movement, 1906–1929,”The New England Quarterly, 1934,7, 3, 494–532, 516.

    Google Scholar 

  64. Boisen, A.T.,The Exploration of the Inner World: A Study of Mental Disorder and Religious Experience. New York, Harper and Brothers, 1936, p. 8.

    Google Scholar 

  65. Hale, N.G., Jr., “Discussion.” In Gifford, G.E., Jr., ed.,Psychoanalysis, Psychotherapy, and the New England Medical Scene, 1894–1944. New York, Science History Publications/USA, 1978, p. 140.

    Google Scholar 

  66. Beers, C.W.,A Mind That Found Itself, An Autobiography. New York, Doubleday, Doran and Co., 1908.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Southern Connecticut State University in New Haven, Connecticut

    Katherine McCarthy Ph.D. (Associate Professor of Sociology)

Authors
  1. Katherine McCarthy Ph.D.
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

McCarthy, K. Psychotherapy and religion: The emmanuel movement. J Relig Health 23, 92–105 (1984). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00996152

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00996152

Keywords

Search

Navigation