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A Section From Chapter XI of
HYPNOTISM TODAY
by Leslie M. Lecron and Jean Bordeaux (c) 1947.

Psychotherapeutic Methods

MODERN MEDICINE has been primarily interested in organic disease, and many physicians still adhere to the doctrine of Hippocrates, believing there is no sickness without organic cause. To them, mental abnormality results only from a diseased or an injured brain. The psychological aspects of, disease have only recently been recognized. The transformation of psychiatry into psychological medicine has come almost wholly within the past fifty years, with its greatest development only in the last quarter century. Emil Kraepelin (1856-1926), the first modern student of the abnormal, led the way in showing the relationship between mind and body in disease, the effect of one upon the other, and demonstrating them as two parts making up a whole instead of considering them as two different entities to be treated separately.

Medical research until recently was concentrated mainly on physiology, and most psychologists have investigated nor behavior rather than abnormal. Hence our knowledge of mental illness is limited. Even today there is no commonly accepted, consistently effective system of psychotherapy avail for the general public.

Medical history discloses that suggestion and herbal remedies have been the main weapons in the fight against disease. Since prehistoric times medicine men and witch doctors have treated organic illness with herbs, using suggestion as mental therapy, and often combining the two. The esoteric knowledge of the ancient priesthoods always comprehended suggestion as therapeutically potent.

Faith healing has long been a common psychotherapeutic method. From time to time over thousands of years, great religious healers have appeared to perform seeming miracles of healing by suggestion and religious faith. Many were deified - Zoroaster, Christ, Mohammed and others in many lands and ages. Today these methods are still employed by evangelists, Christian Science practitioners, healers of many cults.

As a matter of indirect suggestion, every physician has resorted to placebos with success. Sometimes a bad-tasting and entirely powerless "tonic" may be prescribed. Hysterical pains without organic basis have been cured by a simulated operation. Intentionally painful electric shock may be resorted to in the same way.

Ever since Benjamin Franklin flew his kite, medical men have had recourse to electrical treatment, hoping that a current through a diseased part of the body would work a cure in some way. The suggestion of cure often brought beneficial results, confirming the hopes of the physician, who then was convinced that electricity was wholly responsible. The same therapy is much in vogue today, as shown by the elaborate and awe-inspiring machines with highly technical names given them by chiropractors to diagnose or to cure anything and everything-neurocalometers, gravitonic rays, bio-electronic mechanisms, electrometabiographs. Such H. G. Wellsian contrivances surely must be potent for whatever ails you!

Treatment for insanity and other mental disturbances not very long ago included whirling the patient violently until consciousness was lost, thus "restoring the brain particles to proper arrangement." Bleeding, purging, and dehydration were all regarded as effective at one time. Less than a hundred years ago a shock treatment became popular-the victim was plunged into a tub of ice water! All were sometimes beneficial, and underneath them we find hidden that persistent "old debbil," suggestion.

Today there is a different kind of shock treatment in vogue among psychiatrists. Insulin, metrazol and electricity are the agents used to produce convulsions in the patient, a terrific physical shock. Theoretically a biological, chemical or other effect is exerted on the brain, bringing a cure or alleviate of the treated condition.

How it actually operates and why it succeeds is not clearly understood, but shock treatment has been found relatively effective. Apparently it is valuable for the treatment of psychoses, especially manic-depressive and other melancholic conditions . Shock treatment has now been used for a long enough time to permit evaluation of the method, and it is becoming more and more popular with psychiatrists. When psychology fails, it may be resorted to for those neuroses where deep depression is manifested, but it has been found of little value in the treatment of most neuroses.

Auxiliary employment of the drug curare has reduced the chances of physical damage from the convulsions.

Most recently a method of giving electric shock termed "electronarcosis" has been developed at the California Institute of Technology. With a current of much less intensity, the shock is applied for seven or eight minutes, producing a sleep-like state.

Danger is thus eliminated and it is claimed that the therapeutic effects are greatly increased. The present trend is to give electric shock preference over insulin and metrazol.

The effects of the usual shock treatment are terrific. Symptoms are literally jarred out. The normal mental processes are effected to a degree, and the patient is often dazed. Memory is badly disturbed for some time, particularly if a series of three or more shocks are given. Having lost some or all of his symptoms, the patient may decide that he is cured. Shock treatment for neuroses frequently seems to remove symptoms but with subsequent relapse, perhaps because a busy psychiatrist considers shock sufficient and fails to follow it up with reeducation and readjustment, which are essential parts of psychotherapy.

Reassurance and encouragement constitute a direct method of suggestion which ought to be employed in every type of therapy, both functional and organic. Many physicians appreciate its importance and value, while others untutored in psychology are too often impatient with the neurotic and dismiss him with the statement, "There is nothing wrong with you but imagination. Just forget about your trouble." Yet neurotic pains and symptoms are not imaginary. They are actually felt although their basis may be entirely functional. Reassurance may not cure, but it is a valuable aid in paving the way to a cure. Every patient needs to be convinced that, with his cooperation, proper therapy will bring the desired results.

Simplest of all psychotherapeutic methods was that of persuasion, formulated in the latter part of the nineteenth century by Paul DuBois of Switzerland. DuBois observed the cures of Bernheim and others using direct hypnotic suggestion but deemed the method unscientific. He considered hypnotism and suggestion unethical, tinged with charlatanism and something only for the gullible. While DuBois realized that mental disturbances might be caused by disease, he believed that if nothing was organically wrong a sufferer could give up his symptoms voluntarily and be well again. Therefore, he undertook persuasion by reassurance and rationalization. In his book DuBois disclaimed emphatically the use of suggestion, contending that it weakened the subject's will, especially if hypnotism was employed. But when he described his system, it was suggestion and nothing else! As he used it, persuasion became synonymous with suggestion.

Until Freud made psychoanalysis popular early in the present century, probably the best available method of psychotherapy was hypnotism. Direct suggestion under hypnosis was employed by the old-time medical hypnotists such as Braid, Liebeault, Bernheim, Wetterstrand and their associates and successors who practiced before the development of psychanalytic theory made available a better knowledge of the neuroses. Their system differed from modern hypnotherapy. The patient was hypnotized and given repetitious suggestions that his symptoms would disappear and that he would be cured. The writings of these old-school hypnotic practitioners certify to the efficacy of this system. In their survey of hypnotherapy, Brenman and Gill note the success and the permanency of many of their cures.

More orthodox medical men deprecated such an unscientific method, claiming that it only removed symptoms and effected no cure. Today, similar criticism is made by many psychotherapists and others unfamiliar with modern hypnotic methods. Undoubtedly some cures were only temporary, yet this is true also of every system of psychotherapy, for relapses are frequent regardless of the system employed. With little understanding of mental abnormalities and personality disorders, it is remarkable how many patients were permanently relieved. The method must be regarded as moderately effective, although modern hypnotherapy offers far greater possibilities.

Basically, direct hypnotic suggestion of cure is much like faith healing. The patient is benefited principally because lie accepts the suggestion of cure. Unlike faith healing, suggestion is applied scientifically according to its laws and is aimed directly at the difficulty, its force increased because of the increased suggestibility of the patient under hypnosis.

-end of excerpt-

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