Abstract

Instead of attempting to reduce rituals of healing to so‐called primitive psychotherapy this essay raises the question of whether contemporary psychotherapies might not fruitfully be viewed as ritual processes through which a small segment of modern society receives ritual leadership in times of crisis. Selected phenomena in contemporary psychotherapeutic practice are analyzed in an attempt to discern the ritual processes which are manifest in them. It is concluded that most modalities of contemporary psychotherapy manifest elements of ritualized submission, containment, and enactment.