Chapter 3
Psychologists and Psychiatrists
All over the world the dominating power of the Human Mind over the human body is steadily being recognised. I have always wished to use the word "superconscious" instead of the more common subconscious, as I believe "superconscious" better expresses this idea of domination, the full extent of which is even now not sufficiently understood. I would like to see the thousands of pounds now spent on research into treating the symptoms of disease spent instead on further research into these fascinating and all-important matters.
How many of the General Public, for example, know that there are two different kinds of perspiration: one physical—when we sweat after violent physical exercise in hot weather—and one nervous, when we sweat with fear or excitement? These two perspirations show completely different reactions to the appropriate chemical tests. The first kind is not under the control of the mind, the second is.
How many of the general public realise that under hypnosis it can be suggested to a subject that he is eating food, so that his gastric juices are stimulated and his intestinal reactions can be shown to be exactly the same as though he was eating a good meal, although not a crumb has in fact passed his lips?
How many members of the general public know that obstinate and long-standing warts and blisters have been removed gradually by suggestion under hypnosis, and that other physical changes in the skin surface can be induced in the same way? That heart and pulse beats can be raised and lowered in the same way?
How many members of the general public realise fully the psychological factors involved in stomach ulcers, hyper-acidity and the many other internal disorders in which the mind and emotions of the sufferer have taken complete charge of his heart, liver, pancreas or lungs—the normal action of which is entirely involuntary? Isn't it this extraordinary ability of the mind to effect changes in the organic tissue of the body which particularly needs research?
I do not think the public have much idea of these things, though the rise of psychoanalysts and other practitioners who concentrate on the mind factor is a welcome sign; and I myself am often asked by ordinary people for my advice about them.
I regard hypnotism as the tool of psychiatry, perhaps the best tool it has. I claim personally to have hypnotised more men and women than any man living, and my work—especially my experience in U.S. Army and Navy hospitals during the recent war—has shown me what a wonderful tool it can be, in what a vast variety of different cases; so that I say boldly hypnotism should be within the power of every medical man making any claim to eminence in the psychiatric field. It is little use for a doctor to ask questions about the colour of your grandmother's underwear, whether you ever remember falling out of your perambulator, and other questions about things past and forgotten (and often better forgotten too) if he cannot do something practical to offer you hope for your present and future.Therefore I would say there are three qualities that every good psychiatrist must have—and indeed every good doctor, whether psychiatrist or general practitioner, knows from his own experience the value of these points:
(i) He must be a good listener. He must realise that his patients are mostly lonely people bursting to pour out their woes to him, and find in him that pillar of sympathy and friendliness which we all of us need so much,
(ii) He must be a direct talker and not wrap up his opinions in incomprehensible jargon. "You have a chronic inferiority complex" sounds unnecessarily damning to any patient; "you are rather a shy sort of chap" says the same thing much better.
(iii) He must be a man of the widest possible experience and understanding. There is nothing so heartening to a patient as to hear his doctor say: "Well, you're not the only one, you know; I had this trouble and got over it after a bit, and look at me now! We'll fix it for you."
I am not myself a deeply religious man, but I cannot help seeing that in the modern world the psychoanalyst has to some extent replaced the priest—except perhaps in the Roman Catholic church, which in its ritual of confession and absolution still makes official provision for that deep-seated human desire to "get things off one's chest". The psychoanalyst, therefore, has responsibilities as serious as the priest. Let him discharge them in the same spirit of gravity and humility, in the knowledge that the material passing through his hands is that most precious, delicate and wonderful of all created things—the human mind.
Psychologists and Psychiatrists
All over the world the dominating power of the Human Mind over the human body is steadily being recognised. I have always wished to use the word "superconscious" instead of the more common subconscious, as I believe "superconscious" better expresses this idea of domination, the full extent of which is even now not sufficiently understood. I would like to see the thousands of pounds now spent on research into treating the symptoms of disease spent instead on further research into these fascinating and all-important matters.
How many of the General Public, for example, know that there are two different kinds of perspiration: one physical—when we sweat after violent physical exercise in hot weather—and one nervous, when we sweat with fear or excitement? These two perspirations show completely different reactions to the appropriate chemical tests. The first kind is not under the control of the mind, the second is.
How many of the general public realise that under hypnosis it can be suggested to a subject that he is eating food, so that his gastric juices are stimulated and his intestinal reactions can be shown to be exactly the same as though he was eating a good meal, although not a crumb has in fact passed his lips?
How many members of the general public know that obstinate and long-standing warts and blisters have been removed gradually by suggestion under hypnosis, and that other physical changes in the skin surface can be induced in the same way? That heart and pulse beats can be raised and lowered in the same way?
How many members of the general public realise fully the psychological factors involved in stomach ulcers, hyper-acidity and the many other internal disorders in which the mind and emotions of the sufferer have taken complete charge of his heart, liver, pancreas or lungs—the normal action of which is entirely involuntary? Isn't it this extraordinary ability of the mind to effect changes in the organic tissue of the body which particularly needs research?
I do not think the public have much idea of these things, though the rise of psychoanalysts and other practitioners who concentrate on the mind factor is a welcome sign; and I myself am often asked by ordinary people for my advice about them.
I regard hypnotism as the tool of psychiatry, perhaps the best tool it has. I claim personally to have hypnotised more men and women than any man living, and my work—especially my experience in U.S. Army and Navy hospitals during the recent war—has shown me what a wonderful tool it can be, in what a vast variety of different cases; so that I say boldly hypnotism should be within the power of every medical man making any claim to eminence in the psychiatric field. It is little use for a doctor to ask questions about the colour of your grandmother's underwear, whether you ever remember falling out of your perambulator, and other questions about things past and forgotten (and often better forgotten too) if he cannot do something practical to offer you hope for your present and future.Therefore I would say there are three qualities that every good psychiatrist must have—and indeed every good doctor, whether psychiatrist or general practitioner, knows from his own experience the value of these points:
(i) He must be a good listener. He must realise that his patients are mostly lonely people bursting to pour out their woes to him, and find in him that pillar of sympathy and friendliness which we all of us need so much,
(ii) He must be a direct talker and not wrap up his opinions in incomprehensible jargon. "You have a chronic inferiority complex" sounds unnecessarily damning to any patient; "you are rather a shy sort of chap" says the same thing much better.
(iii) He must be a man of the widest possible experience and understanding. There is nothing so heartening to a patient as to hear his doctor say: "Well, you're not the only one, you know; I had this trouble and got over it after a bit, and look at me now! We'll fix it for you."
I am not myself a deeply religious man, but I cannot help seeing that in the modern world the psychoanalyst has to some extent replaced the priest—except perhaps in the Roman Catholic church, which in its ritual of confession and absolution still makes official provision for that deep-seated human desire to "get things off one's chest". The psychoanalyst, therefore, has responsibilities as serious as the priest. Let him discharge them in the same spirit of gravity and humility, in the knowledge that the material passing through his hands is that most precious, delicate and wonderful of all created things—the human mind.
