Scientific mental healing

Front matter

S( I MTIFIC L HEALING

BRUCE m

U ;i ■ ffl||]

Preface

The chief aim of the present volume is to provide the general reader with a brief, yet it is hoped sufficiently comprehensive, account of the principles underlying scientific psychotherapy; and to afford some idea of the methods by which it is applied in the treatment of disease, and also of the maladies to which it is applicable. For this reason the use of technical terms has been avoided as far as possible, and there has been a liberal citation of illustrative cases for the purpose of bringing the principles and the methods concretely to the reader's mind, and in order to emphasize the fundamental differences between psychotherapy of the scientific type and the psychotherapy of " faith healing."

The book is thus of the nature of a " popuvi Preface

lar " manual, and may perhaps be described as a primer in scientific psychotherapy. But the writer trusts that it will not on that account be found devoid of usefulness to the physician and psychologist, and that it may be the means of stimulating in some measure a broader interest in investigations that are unquestionably of tremendous importance to humanity, particularly in this age of hurry, unrest, and " nerve strain." There can be no doubt that functional mental and nervous diseases, as well as the true insanities, are increasing in civilized countries; and statistics such as those gathered, for instance, by the United States Census Bureau, would seem to indicate that they are increasing nrost rapidly in the countries of highest economic development. Scientific mental healing affords a means of coping with this growing evil, as it will be one of the writer's main objects to make clear.

The three essays, " Psychology and Everyday Life," " Half a Century of Psychical Research," and " William James " are in-

Preface vii

eluded because, while they relate only indirectly to the subject of mental healing, they contain information bearing on it in several important respects. Thus, the " Psychology and Everyday Life," though primarily concerned in setting forth possible applications of the results of psychological experimentation in other than a medical way, also surveys methods of mental analysis that are helpful to the physician; the " Half a Century of Psychical Research " emphasizes the debt which modern medical psychology owes to the scientific investigation of the phenomena of spiritism; and, finally, the essay on the late Professor James is included by way of appreciation of the notable services rendered by this eminent American psychologist to both medical psychology and psychical research.

In preparing the various essays, aid has been sought from and generously rendered by leaders in psychological and psychopathological investigation, and to these gentlemen grateful acknowledgment should be viii Preface

made. The writer's thanks are also due the editors of The Outlook, The American Magazine, The Cosmopolitan Magazine, and other publications in which the essays originally appeared. Each essay, it should perhaps be added, has been revised for present publication.

H. Aldington Bruce.

Cambridge, Mass., June, 1911.

Contents

Page

Preface . iii

I The Evolution of Mental Healing 1

II

The foundations of scientific psychotherapy may be said to have been definitely laid about thirty years ago, when men of good repute as physicians and psychologists began for the first time to make an organized investigation of the phenomena of hypnotism, scientific interest in which, as already stated, had been aroused in France by Liebeault's demonstration of its therapeutic helpfulness. Two great centers of experimentation were established, one in the town of Nancy, under the supervision of Liebeault himself, the other in Paris, at the asylum of the Salpetriere, then in charge of the famous Dr. Charcot.

At both these places it was soon ascertained that, quite apart from its power as a healing agent, suggestion, when applied in the hypnotic trance, was capable of producing most extraordinary effects on the human organism. It could seriously modify the processes of nutrition, circulation, and digestion ; could bring about temporary loss of the power of sight, speech, hearing, feeling, and motion; and could even cause the appearance of blisters, swellings, eruptions, etc., on the body of the entranced subject. The mental apparatus was affected most remarkably. Under hypnosis patients 'were able to remember incidents in their past life which had vanished completely from their waking consciousness; and, more striking still, if, while hypnotized, they were given suggestions that involved the performance of some act at a specified time in the future, they would faithfully obey these " post-hypnotic " commands, notwithstanding the fact that when dehypnotized they knew nothing of the suggestions they had received. 1

1 The phenomena of hypnotism will be examined in some detail in the section, "Hypnotism as a Therapeutic Resource."

It seemed a legitimate inference that there existed a much closer relationship between the psychical and the physical in man than had previously been suspected, and that, in view of the effects of hypnotic suggestion on the physiological processes, it was possible that many maladies apparently physical in character had their origin in some psychical disturbance and could best be treated by psychical means. Verification of this theory was not long in forthcoming. Among the patients at the Saltpetriere were a number of victims of hysteria, a disease which, on account of the predominance of such symptoms as convulsions, paralyses, and contractures, had been regarded as primarily physical rather than mental, and treated accordingly, with but little success. By hypnotizing these patients and calling up in hypnosis the memories of their past life, Charcot and his fellow psychopathologists 1 were able to locate the source of all their troubles in long-for-

1 This is the term now generally applied to those students of abnormal psychology who conduct their researches with therapeutic ends in view.

gotten experiences — frights, griefs, and so forth — which in some subtle way had thrown the nervous system out of gear and provoked the hysterical attacks.

Having thus demonstrated the distinctly psychical nature of one disease — and having incidentally learned the value of hypnotism for diagnostic as well as therapeutic purposes — the investigators broadened their field of inquiry, and gradually discovered that besides hysteria there were numerous maladies which similarly originated from psychical disturbances of one kind or another. The disquieting experience might have passed completely from the recollection of the sufferer, yet under hypnosis it readily revealed itself as existing subconsciously in his memory and acting as a perpetual irritant to produce all manner of unpleasant symptoms, physical and mental. In all such cases it was found that a cure could be effected by suggestion when ordinary methods of therapy were of little or no avail.

But, what is most important, it was also ascertained that the efficacy of suggestion itself often depended on the precision with which a diagnosis was made and the secret, psychical cause of distress brought to light. Nor would suggestion succeed if the " dissociation," as it is called, had progressed so far as to involve radical destructive changes in the nerve cells, rendering the malady " organic " instead of merely " functional." For, as the psychopathologist frankly admits, suggestion is powerless in the presence of all " organic " diseases, whatever their origin, or is at best useful as an auxiliary to their treatment by physiological, chemical, and surgical methods.

On the other hand, he has learned that not infrequently the dissociative process gives rise to symptoms simulating those of organic diseases, particularly in the case of sufferers from hysteria. Some hysterical affections, for example, are easily mistaken for tuberculosis of the lungs or other organs, for abdominal and uterine growths, for intestinal obstructions; and if the patient happens to be attended by a physician unacquainted with the myriad forms in which hysteria may show itself, a wrong diagnosis is certain to be made, often with tragic consequences that would have been averted had the true character of the disorder been recognized and resort had to psychotherapy. As Dr. Pierre Janet, one of the foremost of living psychopathologists, pointed out in a course of lectures delivered at the Harvard Medical School, it is impossible to estimate the number of unnecessary and useless operations that have been performed to remedy conditions which really called for treatment by suggestive therapeutics.

Still further, at an early stage of their experiments the Xancy investigators discovered that in some cases suggestion might be utilized therapeutically without the aid of hypnotism. This in turn led to the discovery that every one is more or less suggestible, and rendered possible the development of a system of non-hypnotic psychotherapy resting on scientific knowledge of the laws of suggestion as worked out by painstaking psychological analysis.

To-day, consequently, the scientific psychotherapist does not feel obliged to make such extensive use of hypnotism as in the days of Liebeault and Charcot, but frequently works directly on the waking consciousness of his patients, deftly applying therapeutic suggestions by methods that vary according to the particular requirements of the case. There even are some psychotherapists of the scientific type — such as Dubois, of Berne — who seem to find it unnecessary to use hypnotism at all. The majority, however, employ it to a greater or less extent, especially for purposes of diagnosis, it being their experience that only through hypnosis — or kindred methods to which reference will later be made — is it possible to get at the subconscious mental states in which so often lies hidden the real cause of the malady they are endeavoring to cure. And, whether they utilize hypnotic or non-hypnotic suggestion, all scientific psychotherapists are agreed in recognizing that suggestion has its limitations, and that within those limitations it is necessary for the suggestionist to be thoroughly grounded in the psychological principles governing its action in order to be able to apply it with any certainty of success.

Herein is the great difference between scientific psychotherapy and the psychotherapy practiced by Christian Science and New Thought healers. Where the latter succeed they owe their success, equally with the scientific psychotherapists, to the influence of suggestion. Where they fail it is because they ignorantly treat diseases not susceptible of cure by suggestion; or because, in cases where a cure may be thus wrought, they lack the training that would qualify them to make a precise diagnosis, ascertain the true cause of trouble, and overcome it by one or another of the various methods at the command of the scientific practitioner. Fortunately for them — and for their patients — suggestion, even when unguided by scientific knowledge, is often sufficient of itself to work seemingly miraculous cures. In such cases all that is needed is to imbue the sufferer with a profound conviction, a " lively faith," in the possibility of his regaining health.

This faith Christian Science and the New Thought inspire by their appeal to the religious side of man's nature, by emphasizing the goodness of God, and by systematically cultivating in their adherents a spirit of hopefulness, buoyancy, and courage. So long as they can do this it matters not, from the therapeutic point of view, how erroneous their doctrines may be. Right or wrong, the result is the same — the suggestibility of the believer is increased to a point which renders him peculiarly responsive to curative ideas, and, if he is suffering merely from some functional complaint, may bring about his complete recovery. There is always, however, the danger that his trouble may be organic instead of functional, in which event, his last state is sure to be worse than his first.

But the far-reaching differences between the methods of the scientific and the non-scientific mental healer, may best be made clear by citing a few illustrative cases from the experiences of leading psychopathologists.

There was brought to the office of Dr. Boris Sidis, of Boston, a young man suffering from what were supposed to be attacks of that dread disease, epilepsy. He was a typical product of the slums, gaunt, hungry-looking, undersized. Born of parents of the lowest social strata, he had been treated from infancy with harshness and brutality. He had had no schooling, and could neither read nor write. Except for the names of the President and a few ward politicians, he knew nothing of the history of his country. All his life he had known only poverty and hard work.

And now it seemed that even the chance of earning a meager living by hard work was about to be taken away from him.

" I have such fearful shaking spells," he told the doctor. " They come on me day and night. I shake all over, my teeth chatter, I feel cold. Then I fall to the floor and lose my senses. Sometimes my fits last three hours."

" Have you had them long? "

" Yes, almost since my boyhood. But they are getting worse all the time."

After a careful examination and the application of the most rigid tests had revealed no sign of organic trouble, Dr. Sidis suspected that the convulsive attacks might be nothing more than the outward, physical manifestation of some deep-seated psychical disturbance. He questioned the young man closely:

" Can you remember just when these attacks began?"

"Did you have them when you were a child? "

" I don't think so."

:c Was there anything that occurred during your childhood likely to leave a particularly disagreeable impression on you? "

" Why," he replied, " I have been unhappy all my life. As a boy I was beaten and kicked and cursed. But I don't think of anything special."

" Will you let me hypnotize you? "

" You can do anything you like to me, doctor, so long as it will help me get well."

But it was found impossible to hypnotize him — he was in too agitated, too excited a state.

Now, psychopathologists long ago discovered that not everybody was hypnotizable; and, moreover, that many persons would not permit themselves to be hypnotized. So they have been obliged to devise other means of " tapping the subconscious." Among these is a method known as hypnoidization, which results in putting the patient into a half-dozing, half-wakeful condition, wherein long-forgotten memories crop up in the mind.

Making use of this method, Dr. Sidis soon had his patient in a quiescent state — in fact, to all appearances asleep.

" Now," said he, in a low tone, " tell me what you are thinking about."

At first there was no response, but presently the young man began to talk. It was evident that he was recalling memories of his childhood — sordid, pathetic, almost tragic scenes.

He spoke of a " dark, damp cellar " in which, when a very little boy, he had been forced to sleep, and where it was bitterly cold. He spoke of the terror it had inspired in him, and how he had been afraid to go to sleep, lest he should be gnawed by rats. Then, with startling suddenness, he leaped out of his chair, shaking in every limb, teeth chattering, speech paralyzed. He was in the throes of one of his attacks.

The doctor nodded his head understandingly.

It was not an epileptic case. It was a typical instance of a seemingly purely physical malady having its origin in a psychic shock.

Consciously the sufferer had forgotten all about the nights passed in the cellar so many years before. They had utterly vanished from his waking memory. But subconsciously he remembered them as distinctly as though they were not past but present experiences — subconsciously he was continually living them over again, to the gradual breaking down of his nervous system, of which the convulsive attacks were symptomatic. In fact, it was found that they could be brought on merely by uttering in his hearing the words " dark " and " damp," which seemed to act as psychic triggers exploding the mine of horror memories in the depths of his subconscious being.

A few weeks of suggestive treatment directed to the complete blotting out of the disease-producing memories, and he was permanently freed from his terrible affliction.

More frequently, the symptoms in dissociational cases are wholly mental. Here is a characteristic example, likewise taken from the experience of Dr. Sidis, who, it may incidentally be said, shares with Dr. Morton Prince, also of Boston, unquestioned preeminence among the few psychopathologists whom America has as yet produced.

A middle-aged gentleman resident in a New England town, highly educated, successful in business, and generally regarded as a man of great intellectual keenness and strength of will, called at his office one day and announced:

" Doctor, I have come to see you about a matter which may seem absurd, but which is making life a perfect hell to me. Put briefly, the trouble is that I am afraid to go out nights."

" By that you mean — ? "

" I mean that as soon as darkness sets in, I become a coward. I dare not stir from the house. No matter what imperative demands my business may make, no matter what social engagements I should keep, I simply do not dare to go outdoors.

"I do not know what it is that I am afraid of. It is just a vague, haunting, overpowering dread that seizes me as soon as night comes. My relatives have argued with me, I have argued with myself. I know it is absurd, but I simply cannot shake it off. And, doctor, I tell you it is killing me."

Putting him in the hypnoidal state, Dr. Sidis, note-book in hand, jotted down every word that fell from his lips.

Mere fragments of ideas they were, like the swiftly changing fancies of a dreamer. All at once he muttered :

" They will kill me! What a blow that was! I can never get home."

The psychopathologist bent forward, listening eagerly.

" How dark it is! How my head hurts! iYes, they got all my money."

And now, piecemeal but in graphic detail, he rehearsed an experience of his youth — an attack made upon him one night by two highwaymen, who had beaten him into unconsciousness.

In that attack lay the clue to his seemingly irrational fear.

He had apparently recovered from its effects, no physical harm had resulted. He had long since dismissed it from his mind. Yet subconsciously he had never forgotten it; subconsciously he was haunted by the idea that if he went out at night he would again be attacked by footpads !

He was like a man tormented by a perpetual nightmare, and, like the victim of a nightmare, he awoke to a full realization of the folly of his terror and was able to overcome it as soon as it was presented in its true light to his waking consciousness.

Precisely the reverse was the case of a woman who feared to leave her house not at night but in the daytime. In the normal, waking state she could give no explanation for this obsessing fear, but put into the hypnoidal state its explanation was soon forthcoming.

Years before there had come into her life one of those domestic tragedies of all too common occurrence. She had discovered that her husband was unfaithful to her, and that he had become infatuated with another woman.

Like many another wife she had kept her sorrow to herself. But the shock had so unnerved her that she began to imagine that everybody she met in the street knew of her troubles and was talking about them. Soon she could not bear to go outdoors, and became almost a recluse, appearing in public as little as possible.

After a time, however, there had been a reconciliation, and she became, to all outward seeming, happy and light-hearted as before, going everywhere, entering freely into social amusements, and apparently being in perfect health. Nevertheless, the bitter experience through which she had passed had left a deep psychic wound that never completely healed.

Without realizing it, she was constantly tormented subconsciously by the old idea that everybody she met was talking about her. From this, years afterwards, developed the seemingly inexplicable fear of going outdoors in the daytime.

Asked, while in the hypnoidal state, why she was not afraid to go out after dark, she promptly replied:

" Because in the dark no one can recognize me."

Subconsciously, in other words, the sorrow and the dread and the bitter thoughts of the period of alienation from her husband were still present experiences to her — were still as real and painful as at the time of their actual occurrence.

All this was revealed through hypnoidization, and a complete cure speedily effected, the baneful memory-images being rooted out of her subconsciousness, or, to speak more accurately, being " reassociated " with her upper consciousness.

Sometimes dissociational disorders result not from a single emotional disturbance but from a succession of psychic shocks, giving rise to the most complicated symptoms. I have in mind a recent striking case of this sort, in which, after years of indescribable suffering, a woman of sixty was by psychopathological treatment cured of lung, stomach, and kidney trouble, to say nothing of an extreme nervousness and an insistent fear that she was becoming insane.

When she applied for treatment she presented a pathetic appearance. She was haggard, emaciated, and weak, her skin dry and crackling, her heart action irregular. She had a racking cough, and occasionally, she said, suffered from convulsive attacks during which she became unconscious. But most of all she complained of sensitiveness of the stomach, of kidney trouble, and of nervousness.

" When the nervous spells are on me," she declared, " I suffer death agonies. I cannot sleep, I cannot eat, my head feels as though it would burst. Time and again I have been on the verge of committing suicide.

" Then, too, I feel as though I must be going crazy. Though I can read and study and take up any intellectual pursuit without the slightest ill effect, if I attempt, for instance, to buy a dress for myself, my brain gets on fire and I walk the floor in a frenzy of excitement, quite unable to decide what choice I should make. Yet I experience no difficulty in making purchases for other people, and my judgment is considered so good that my friends often ask me to help them in their shopping. And I cough, day and night, sometimes for hours together."

A thorough examination, however, failed to disclose any indication of organic lung disease, or of kidney or stomach disease. Besides which, unlike the young man with the " epileptic " seizures, the patient was found to have an excellent family history, from the medical point of view. Both her father and her mother had been of rugged constitution and had lived to a good old age. Dissociation was at once suspected, and she was hypnoidized.

Almost the first statement she made in the hypnoidal state related to a long-forgotten incident of childhood that had been the starting-point of all her troubles.

At the age of five — fifty-five years before she sought psychopathological aid — she had been frightened into an hysterical attack by the sight of an insane woman in a maniacal state. For months afterwards the image of that woman never left her mind, and she kept asking herself, " Do little girls go insane? "

And even after the image faded from her waking memory it remained as vividly as ever in her subconsciousness — as was shown by the fact that, although before being hypnoidized she had stated that she never dreamed, in the hypnoidal state she remembered that she frequently dreamed an insane woman was standing near her bed, bending over her.

To this subconscious memory-image, persisting all unknown to her for more than half a century, was due her unconquerable fear that she would herself some day become insane.

Another horror memory that had affected her whole after-life was connected with an occurrence of her early girlhood. At the age of eleven she had been frightened into insensibility by the action of a girl friend in dressing up as a " ghost " and darting out upon her in a dark room. In her waking state she remembered nothing of this; hypnoidized, she recalled it vividly.

When eighteen, having become a school teacher, she had worried greatly because of failure to secure promotion. From this period dated her headaches, as well as her first serious nervous attack.

But the culminating shock — the experience to which her physical ills were chiefly due — was sustained in middle life, when her only daughter, after growing up to womanhood, fell a victim to consumption. Throughout the weary weeks of her daughter's illness she watched in anguish at her bedside. The distressing cough, the gastric disturbances, the loss of appetite, the nausea, the inability to retain food — every symptom seared itself into the mother's subconsciousness, never to be forgotten and eventually to be reproduced, by the strange power of subconscious mental action, in the mother herself.

Caused by the mind they were curable by the mind. One by one the psychopathologist attacked and eradicated these deadly subconscious memories, and with their blotting out the patient's health constantly improved, until at last the entire complex of symptoms had disappeared.

Here, then, we find subconscious mental action responsible for the production of seeming insanities, delusions, irrational fears, and, in the case of this unhappy woman of sixty, even causing the appearance of symptoms resembling those of true organic disease.

Finally, to mention a typical instance in which a wholly unnecessary and useless operation was averted by psychopathology, there is the case of a young woman of Providence, R. I., whom a lucky chance took to a neurologist, Dr. John E. Donley, an ardent student of psychopathological methods.

She had been sent to him by her physician to determine what particular nerve in her hand ought to be " resected " to relieve a semi-paralysis from which she had been suffering for some time. A year or so before she had been bitten in the hand by a pet cat. At first she had felt no ill consequences, the wound healing nicely. But after a time a pain had set in, gradually extending up the arm, which had become almost helpless. It was her physician's opinion that some nerve had been caught in the scar of the wound, and that an operation, which she greatly dreaded, would be necessary to restore the arm to usefulness.

Before examining her hand Dr. Donley decided to make a psychopathological examination as to her general nervous condition. The discovery immediately followed that the paralysis of her arm was nothing more than an hysterical disturbance.

Hypnoidizing her, he found that the attack made on her by the cat had caused a profound psychic shock. She had been almost panic-stricken with fear, insisting that blood poisoning would surely result; and, although the wound had healed as her physician predicted it would, she still subconsciously clung to this idea.

What she required was not the surgeon's knife but treatment by suggestion. Only a few such treatments were needed to work a complete cure.

But — and this is a point that cannot be emphasized too strongly — even suggestion would in all probability have failed had not the neurologist been able, by the methods of psychopathological diagnosis, to get at the exact cause of the trouble and apply precisely the suggestions needed to meet the situation.

This it is that most sharply differentiates scientific psychotherapy from the psychotherapy of the faith healer. To repeat what was said above:

Both the scientific psychotherapist and the faith healer make use of suggestion to attain their ends. Both get results, for the reason that suggestion, even when utilized by an untrained practitioner, is frequently powerful enough to bring about seemingly miraculous restorations to health.

But whereas the non-scientific psychotherapist, with few exceptions, applies suggestion indiscriminately to all manner of diseases, the scientific psychotherapist recognizes that it is by no means a cure-all, and that even in cases where it is beneficial a thorough, accurate diagnosis is often indispensable to a perfect cure.

As between these two types of psychotherapy can there be any doubt which is the " true mental healing " — that which takes its stand on blind faith, or that which depends on the proven facts of scientific experiment and observation?

Ill

I hate already given an outline account of the wonderful new science of psychopathology, or medical psychology, and of the development by its aid of a scientific system of mental healing which the physicians of this country, as of other lands, are beginning to adopt. Now I want to say something about the men who, by their investigations and remarkable cures, have done most to convince the medical world that the human mind possesses powers which, when scientifically directed, are almost incredibly efficacious in conquering many widespread and hitherto baffling diseases.

They are an exceedingly interesting group, these premier psychopathologists. There are four of them, representing by birth as many countries — France, Austria, Russia, and the United States. But the Russian in early manhood made his way to this country, so that, of the four leaders of scientific mental healing, two are Europeans and two Americans. Their names are Pierre Janet, of Paris ; Sigmund Freud, of Vienna; Morton Prince, of Boston; and Boris Sidis, of Boston.

Of the four, I must speak first of Janet. He it was, who, under the inspiring guidance of the famous Dr. Charcot, first called attention to the importance of psychology as an aid in the practice of medicine, and made the marvelous discovery of the role played by mental experiences of an emotional nature in the causation of many diseases. Yet, curiously enough, he began his professional career without any idea of becoming either a psychologist or a physician.