An appraisal of hypnosis

Abstract

'There is no doubt that Freud is right in his remark that the eager readiness of the medical profession to employ the term suggestion ' is due not so much to the propagandism of the Nancy school as to the alleviating discovery that a great economy of thought can thereby be effected' (Jones, 1910). Hypnosis tends today to be little used in psychiatric practice. Occasionally it is employed, as a useful adjunct to psychotherapy or manipulation of the environment, in the treatment of patients with hysterical conversion symptoms. A relaxation procedure with or without hypnotic suggestions may be followed in the treatment of specific phobias (which are rare), or in the treatment of tension headachewhich is common but far more often treated with psychotherapy and medication. Claims are made for its use in psychosomatic conditions, e.g. warts or asthma, and in the treatment of pain in childbirth. But typically, in such instances, warts respond to alternative means of suggestion, whilst asthma benefits most in respect of patients' reports of subjective well-being but very much less in regard to physical indices like vital capacity (Maher-Loughnan & Kinsley, 1968; Maher-Loughnan, 1970). Similarly pain in childbirth is only relieved erratically, and probably not more than moderately, by hypnosis, so that whilst relaxation training is widely practised (Chertok, 1969) hypnosis itself is rarely used. In this country there are one or two research workers in the field of hypnotism and systematic experimental work is conducted by a number of psychologists in North America. In the U.S.S.R. the subject attracts attention, in a framework of Pavlovian theory. The writer only uses the technique occasionally but has employed it from time to time in the past, and many, perhaps most, psychiatrists in the U.K. do not use it at all. Nevertheless the subject remains of considerable theoretical and human interest.