The following extract of a letter, written to me by a patient, an experienced English surgeon, now in charge of a hospital in England, whose case was severe and chronic, dating from early childhood, is valuable, both on account of his medical training and his mental abilities which make him an excellent judge as to the fundamental change and cure effected:
“It is now exactly two years since I was undergoing treatment at your kindly and sympathetic hands. I remember that you once told me that the seed sown by you would probably take this length of time to come to fruition. Therefore, it may not be without interest to you to receive a supplement to many other letters in which I will endeavor to summarize my progress—for the last time.
“I have no longer even the least lingering doubt that you can count me among your most brilliantly successful cures. I say this after many—too many—heart searchings which are probably characteristic of my somewhat doubting temperament. At first, I was disappointed with the whole business: I suppose I looked for strange and dramatic events to occur which would change my whole personality and temperament in a short time. Nothing so exciting happened; I left Portsmouth still feeling that I owned the same name, and very much the same ‘ego’ that I arrived with. I was unaware that any profound psychological operation had taken place. To be candid, I did not think it had—the beginnings, no doubt, were there—but no more. But now when I carry my mind back to the type of obsession which used to assail me—is there any change? Good God! I behold a miracle, although it has come about so silently that I can only realize the difference by comparing the present with the past. In conclusion I can only send you my undying gratitude.... You have saved me from what, I honestly believe, would have one day resulted in deliberate suicide which I often contemplated as the one solution of my trouble....”
These extracts are typical of many others, and clearly show the enjoyment of new strength and powers until now unknown to the patient. Fresh reservoirs of reserve energy have been tapped and have become available in an hour of dire need. The patient has light and strength where there were darkness and depression. We are confronted here with the important phenomenon of liberation of dormant reserve energy. The patient feels the flood of fresh energies as a “marvelous transformation,” as a “new light,” as a “new life,” as “a something worth more than life itself.”
The hypnoidal state helps us to reach the inaccessible regions of dormant, reserve energy, helps to break down inhibitions, to liberate reserve energies and to repair the breaches or dissociation of mental life. The painful systems become dissociated, disintegrated and again transformed, reformed, and reintegrated into new systems, full of energy and joy of life.
The banishment of credulity, the cultivation of the upper, critical consciousness, the rational control of the subconscious, the moderation of the self-impulse, the regulation of the fear-instinct, and the access to the vast stores of subconscious reserve energy, all go to the formation of a strong, healthy-minded personality, free from fear and psychopathic maladies.
[INDEX]
Affections, neurotic, [59]
Aphonia, [234], [248]
Aristotle, [320]
Automatic writing, [258], [260], [262]
Automatic state, [121]
Bacon, [301]
Bain, [39], [56]
Bernheim, [306]
Binet, [255]
Bramwell, [112]
Carlyle, [49], [314]
Catalepsy, [212], [218], [234], [244]
Cataplexy, [67], [96]
Characteristics of morbid states, [73], [74]
Charcot, [325]
Civilization, [273], [274]
Claperèdé, [95]
Compayré, [40]
Consciousness, [77]
will-, [77]
Conversion, [312], [319]
Crile, [53]
Dämmerzustände, [220], [221]
Darwin, Ch., [47], [57], [274]
Demoor, [131]
Diathesis, psychopathic, [285]
Differentiation of neurotic states, [113]
Disturbances, neurotic, [58]
Donley, John, [102], [103]
Dormant systems, [371]
Dostoevsky, [25]
Egocentric, [366]
Energy,
circulating, [369]
dynamic, [335], [339]
kinetic, [369]
neuron, [333], [339], [354]
organic, [335]
reserve, [334], [354], [369]
restitution of, [336]
static, [334], [335]
Epictetus, [320]
Eugenics, [276], [285]
Fear, attacks, [226]
instincts, [23], [24], [26], [42], [48], [55], [128], [164], [325], [354], [364]
stages of, [27]
Fear suggestion, [324]
symptoms and description, [57], [60]
types of, [351]
Frazer, [297]
Functional psychosis, [42], [43]
Galton, [74], [146], [310]
Hall, Stanley, [70]
Haller, [46]
Hallucination, [250], [254], [255]
hypnotic, [256]
pseudo, [224]
Health, [130]
Hegel, [320]
Heredity, [271], [278], [353]
Hypnagogic state, [92]
Hypnapagogic state, [92]
Hypnoidal state, [66], [91], [93], [95], [98], [101], [102], [106], [109], [113], [176], [264], [328]
Hypnoidization, [101], [102], [109], [110]
Hypnosis, [93], [96]
nature of, [95], [96]
Individuality, struggle for, [21]
James, William, [34], [320], [321]
Janet, [355]
Kirchner, [67]
Kraepelin, [50]
Liebault, [306]
Life energy, [332]
Maladies, [164]
neurotic, [164]
psychopathic, [58], [368]
Meltzer, [334]
Metaphysics, [312]
Mitchell, T. W., [103], [106], [107]
Minot, [334]
Mosso, [46], [277], [326], [345]
Münsterberg, [305]
Mysticism, [75], [76], [139], [312], [319]
Nerve cell organization, [77]
inferior, [77]
superior, [77]
Neuropathies, [62], [63], [65]
Neurosis, [42], [44], [60], [171], [178], [271], [276], [285]
forms of, [61]
Neurotic patients, [118], [130], [160]
Neurotic states, [136]
Organopathies, [61], [63], [65]
Parasitism, neurotic, [131]
Pascal, [274]
Percept, nature of, [251]
Perez, [33]
Personality, [86], [89]
Pfleiderer, [317]
Plato, [320]
Pollock, [352]
Prayer, [312], [319], [329]
Preyer, [33]
Principle of contrast, [139]
of differentiation, [143]
of diminishing resistance, [143]
dissociation, [142]
dominance, [144]
dynamogenesis, [144]
embryonic psychogenesis, [137]
fusion or synthesis, [138]
inhibition, [144]
irradiation or diffusion, [142]
mental contest and discord, [145]
modification, [148]
proliferation and complication, [138]
recession, [140]
recurrence, [137]
Psychoanalysis, [7], [9], [192], [330]
Psychognosis, [120]
Psycholepsy, [216]
Psychopathic affections, [65], [115], [121], [130], [161], [284], [356]
Psychosis, functional, [41], [44], [277]
Ribakov, [171]
Ribot, [33], [75], [340], [341]
Romanes, [40]
Routine, [121], [358]
Royce, J., [320]
Schopenhauer, [320]
Self-preservation, [19], [23], [26], [128], [147], [164], [182], [311], [325], [368]
Self, subwaking, [86], [89], [90]
Seneca, [320]
Sensory elements, [251]
primary, [251]
secondary, [251]
Sex, instinct, [132]
Sherrington, [52], [70]
Sleep, [66], [95], [96], [110]
Somatopsychosis, [64]
Stammering, [234], [242]
States
hypnagogic, [92]
hypnapagogic, [92]
recurrent, [223], [360]
sleeping, [337]
waking, [336]
Struggle for individuality, [21]
Subconscious, the, [77]
Suggestibility, [79], [80], [85]
abnormal, [81]
laws of, [81], [82]
normal, [81]
Suggestion, [79]
post-hypnotic, [259], [260]
Sully, [41]
Superstition, [38], [264], [305]
Synæsthesia, [252], [254]
Taboos, [281], [308], [311]
apparition, [259]
Trance states, [79]
Weir-Mitchell, [160]
rest treatment of, [165]
Writing, automatic, [258], [260], [262]