Dr. John George Gehring and His Bethel Clinic: Pragmatic Therapy and Therapeutic Tourism

Abstract

During the first quarter of the twentieth century, Dr. John George Gehring treated hundreds of patients for stress, anxiety, and depression at his home in Bethel,Maine. Employing a pragmatic mix of hypnotism, medication, talk therapy, and behavior modification, Gehring attracted famous writers, academics, philanthropists, politicians, and socialites from around the U.S. Although he wrote and spoke about his methods, Gehring did not found a school of therapy or have a great deal of professional influence, but he had a sizeable impact on the state of Maine through the philanthropy of one of his patients, William Bingham II, whose visits to Gehring’s Bethel clinic are part of a pattern of therapeutic tourism that continues to the present.