Dictionary

absent treatment en · NOUN

Meanings

1. (archaic, countable, uncountable) A (nonscientific or pseudoscientific) form of (alleged) medical therapy in which the practitioner brings about healing despite their being physically absent, through telepathy, telekinesis, prayer, or a combination of those.
   • In 1859, Quimby [Phineas Parkhurst Quimby] opened an office in Portland, Maine, after several years spent treating the sick at his home in Belfast [Belfast, Maine] and during his travels. He treated his patients with a combination of panaceas, giving them glasses of magnetized water, rubbing their heads, and performing a laying on of hands, but he began to believe that these physical performances, accompanied by his reassurances, were almost wholly psychosomatic in their effectiveness. His practice of mesmerism had been transformed from a crude magic act to a simple application of psychological reassurance, a kind of medicine that was, by all accounts, including Eddy’s [Mary Baker Eddy's], intensely satisfying to his patients. He believed—and often demonstrated—that he could argue his patients out of their conviction that dyspepsia or back pain or some other minor symptom was destroying their lives. Because his form of healing was largely mental, basically involving a dialogue with the patient, he could heal from a distance, and frequently engaged in a therapeutic correspondence with his patients. […] Throughout this period, which is one of the least well documented of her life, Mary grew increasingly dependent on Quimby, writing him letters beseeching his absent treatment when she was away, observing his practice and making handwritten copies of his manuscripts when she was in Portland. Invariably she was cured in his presence, but in his absence her symptoms returned. She needed his attention, his soothing hands, his teaching. 2019 [1999], Caroline Fraser, God's Perfect Child: Living and Dying in the Christian Science Church, Twentieth Anniversary Edition edition, Picador, →ISBN, pages 54-59:
2. (countable, uncommon, uncountable) Interpersonal treatment (way of interacting), usually mistreatment, that ignores the presence of a person.
   • Near-synonyms: silent treatment, cold shoulder

Forms

Hypernyms

behavior · quackery · treatment · therapy

Synonyms

cold shoulder · silent treatment · teletherapy