Emotional flooding is a form of psychotherapy that involves attacking the unconscious and/or subconscious mind to release repressed feelings and fears. Many of the techniques used in modern emotional flooding practice have roots in history, some tracing as far back as early tribal societies. For more information on emotional flooding, see Flooding (psychology). Tribal Societies Tribal communities often have a shaman, or a medicine man, whose primary responsibilities includes: diagnosing illnesses, prescribing herbs and suggesting other treatments to cure the afflicted of their ailments. Many ritual cures include free displays of emotion. In his book, The Discovery of the Unconscious, Henri Ellenberger claims that shamans historically were primarily practitioners of psychosomatic medicine. These shamans did not consider the possibility of a split between mind and body, unlike the popular beliefs of the Western philosophical movement. Dr. Paul Olsen said, "Implicit in the belief that any sort of illness contains emotional elements is an unverbalized acknowledgment of an unconscious process. It follows that liberation of these elements is a pathway to cure. In essence, the shamans were dealing with a crude but strikingly accurate concept of repression." The link between these methods and modern techniques is the emphasis upon working with the body. Psychiatrist Ari Kiev said, "[groups that] facilitate change by producing excessive cortical excitation, emotional exhaustion, and states of reduced resistance or hypersuggestibility, which in turn increases the patient's chances of being converted to new points of view [are consistent with modern-day modalities of primal therapy and encounter.]" According to some researchers, many tribal afflictions were more likely symptoms of disorders such as depression or schizophrenia. Similar to the treatments for these disorders practiced today, historically the treatments shamans practiced often required the patient to recall difficult experiences and to recreate a wide range of emotional accounts. Early Renaissance Doctors from the Renaissance period also practiced treatments that resembled emotional flooding for patients afflicted with demonic possession. Paul Olsen says, "Possession was truly a diagnostic category of its day, encompassing practically any form of religi-culturally determined psychopathology.” Practitioners frequently attributed many ailments, as well as most odd behaviors, now recognized as mental diseases to Satan and other demons. This was particularly true when the ravings, actions, or hallucinatory experiences could be considered blasphemous or heretical. Cures for possession by the devil focused on spiritual salvation and were aimed at getting to a person's unconscious and unacceptable impulses and wishes.