Mind-Cure

1859

Phineas P. Quimby (1802–1866)

A new self-help movement began in the late 1800s that brought together a variety of practices and beliefs about how to be healthy. It was called New Thought, or Mind-Cure.

The movement’s founding father was Phineas P. Quimby, a clockmaker turned mesmerist turned healer. In 1859, Quimby settled in Portland, Maine, where he wrote and taught about the important connections among mind, behavior, and health. In Quimby’s system of psychological healing, an intense rapport was developed with the patient, allowing the healer to see the false belief (about disease) that was the true cause of the illness. Treatment consisted of correcting the false belief, and health could be maintained through right thinking. This was one of the first psychological therapies.

Quimby’s system was influential and appealed to people across the social and educational spectrum. Mary Baker Eddy, a former patient of Quimby’s, founded Christian Science in 1866, and by the early 1900s there was a growing number of women and men who developed Mind-Cure approaches influenced by Quimby. Many of these practitioners were loosely organized under the name of New Thought, and their appeal was wide. Some New Thought volumes sold hundreds of thousands or even millions of copies.

The American psychologist William James called this movement the “religion of healthy-mindedness.” Clearly, millions of Americans believed in the importance of the mind-body connection in health and disease. For many, such belief was combined with special diets—vegetarianism, fruitarianism, herbalism—and exercise in order to maximize health and mental functioning. The healthy person was one who was fit in body, mind, and spirit.

Over the course of the twentieth century, this willingness to believe in the importance of the mind-body connection was manifested in new scientific approaches, including Psychosomatic Medicine, health psychology, and psychoneuroendocrinology, along with continuing interest in herbs, diet, and exercise.

SEE ALSO The Principles of Psychology (1890), Psychosomatic Medicine (1939), Biopsychosocial Model of Health (1977), Mind-Body Medicine (1993)

A bookplate from the First Church of Divine Science in Cleveland, Ohio, dated to the early twentieth century.

Mary Baker Eddy Memorial in Mount Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Eddy was one of the disciples of Phineas P. Quimby and extrapolated the principles she learned from him into the first tenets of Christian Science.