The self help movement really began with the advent of psychiatry and the first revolutionary ideas of Dr. Sigmund Freud. Although Freud is ideas have been largely supplemented and many of them have been outright replaced, his work concerning the subconscious mind have revolutionized the way we view ourselves and our future.
Psychology really began with Dr. Sigmund Freud and his inner circle of students who later went on to establish the science of psychoanalysis and the technique for raising the unconscious to the conscious level of awareness. This process of clinical psychoanalysis was the first rigorous science of the mind which has since been used as the foundation for many other practices and techniques that have spread throughout the Western world.
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