The self help movement really began with the advent of psychiatry and the first revolutionary ideas of Dr. Sigmund Freud. Although Freud's 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.

Raising consciousness has always been a great value in spiritual traditions and, as a general rule, is far from being something new in history. As far back as 5000 BC, it is largely believed that Hindu sages practices rituals and techniques of mediation to raise their own subconscious minds to a higher level of consciousness and were monumentally successful in many cases. Even without the very detailed and succinct observations of modern psychiatry, these age old sages were capable of reaching incredible heights of transcendental consciousness all through the use of yoga and meditation. These practices have made a great comeback in recent decades because of the more rigorous discoveries in psychoanalysis which how that increasing your consciousness can actually be proven to bring about greater health and well being among many psychoanalytic patients.

The self help movement has also gotten a giant boost from the discoveries of Sigmund Freud and his greatest student Dr. Carl Jung. Dr. Jung eventually broke away from his teacher and pursued a wider application of Freud's ideas so as to apply the importance of spiritual reality to the discoveries of improving one's level of consciousness. Freud was widely criticized for placing too much importance on the role of sexuality in our growth as human beings. Dr. Jung saw further than this and recognized that spiritual ideas also play an important role in our development and can be used to raise our consciousness in ways that Freud was never able to see. Dr. Jungs work involving the collective unconscious and archetypes of the mind have contributed to our understanding of the importance of self help and spiritual growth. In fact, it is widely known that Dr. Jung's clinical practice helped to spark the earliest growth of the twelve step groups today and his specific work with the founders of Alcoholic's Anonymous was the beginning of a movement which has utterly transformed our modern day society and the self help movement.

Psychology has played an integral role in the development of the self help movement and this trend is far from being over. The most modern contributor to this great movement is Dr. David R. Hawkins who has written an even more influential work entitled Power Versus Force which now begins another great wave of contributions to the progress of higher consciousness and spiritual development. Dr. Hawkins discoveries concerning the science of kinesiology prove that consciousness itself can actually be measured according to the internal reactions of the body. This discovery brings great promise to the world of both psychiatry and spiritual growth because it introduces an actual compass for the spiritual seeker. Kinesiology may now be used to determine the level of consciousness of thousands of different spiritual techniques, practices, writings, teachers and even places or things which all carry with them a certain field of power that can be researched and understood directly through the reactions they have on the body's internal energy meridians. The implications of this recent discovery are only just beginning to be recognized by thousands of people around the world.

The future is bright for both psychology and self help as many new discoveries are being made each day that will soon transfer the way we view ourselves and the people around us. It will serve you best to be one of the wise people who gets on the self help bandwagon now while the discoveries are just making their greatest effect they will have ever made before.