Hypnotism: Its History, Practice and Theory |
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i medicine, is bound to have many opportunities for employing psycho-therapeutic influence. In many cases certain quite definite factors also play a part. Thus there are cases in which a doctor who is almost a stranger is able to exert a greater influence than one who is a friend of the patient. It is an old story that when a doctor is on intimate terms with his patient, his influence on the latter is frequently lessened, though it sometimes happens that old acquaintanceship in-creases the influence. Take the case of a family doctor who has attended the same family for twenty years, seen its members in happiness and in suffering, watched the children grow up, been consulted on all serious matters of health, and without whose knowledge no other doctor has ever been called in. We can well understand that such a family doctor is often able to exert the very strongest influence on such patients. On the other hand, a doctor who is a family doctor in name only, but who in reality occupies the degraded position of advertising agent to specialists, hydropathic establishments and sanatoria, can never under any circumstances be calculated to exercise such influence. It often happens that a doctor, whose reputation for special skill has preceded him and whose extensive practice forbids the devotion of sufficient time to each patient, obtains the best results; his every word seems a revelation to the patient. There are many other cases in which it is much better for a patient—a neurasthenic with all kinds of hypochondriacal troubles, for instance—to seek the advice of a doctor who can devote sufficient time to his case to go into all his complaints, and who can also direct him to some occupation and activity. But this will generally have to be a doctor who is not very busily employed. Of course, a doctor should not bide by a mere schematic use of the psycho-therapeutic remedies that have been described, or even think that he has only to use one of them at a time. It has only been my intention to give a general sketch of the question, and I have consequently omitted many details. As a rule, a doctor will not merely combine mental with psychic treatment, but will employ several mentally curative factors simultaneously. I have already repeatedly touched on this question. When a doctor intends, for instance, to use volitional therapeutics or praxi-therapeutics he ought, almost invariably, to explain to the patient the importance of such methods in the treatment of his disease—i.e., instructional therapeutics
THE MEDICAL ASPECTS OF HYPNOSIS. 397 |
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