In speaking of the results of hypnotic treatment as being brilliant but erratic, it is important to remember that the same observations apply to suggestion without hypnosis. For instance, the application of electricity to the vocal cords in cases of hysterical aphonia affords an admirable illustration of the treatment by suggestion, even if the method savours of charlatanism. An excellent demonstration of the part which psychical factors play in such cases is afforded by the story of a sailor on the German battle-cruiser Derfflinger, recorded by Blässig.[34]
“A seaman from the Derfflinger was brought into a naval hospital with loss of voice on Dec. 22nd, 1914, and could speak only in a whisper. He said that he had always had good health, with the exception that as a child he had diphtheria, but recovered without tracheotomy or any complication. His voice had always been clear and well under control. At the beginning of December he had a slight cold, which he attributed to sentry duty on deck in very stormy and wet weather. While in the ammunition chamber of the big guns he was greatly upset during the firing and suddenly lost his voice. After fourteen days he recovered his speech. On Feb. 12th, 1915, he returned to hospital with complete loss of voice, immediately after the naval engagement in the North Sea. On Feb. 15th he was treated with electricity, directly applied to the vocal cords, and on March 20th he was discharged with complete recovery of his speech. But on returning to duty, as soon as he went on board his ship his voice was suddenly lost for the third time, and he remained aphonic.”
This is clear evidence of the fact that his trauma was psychical. His previous history perhaps contains the clue explaining why, in his case, it was his voice which was affected. The application of the faradic current was suggestion pure and simple.
In emphasising the limited usefulness and possible danger of suggestive therapeutics in many cases that are not quite recent, we have not been referring to that method of suggestion which is involved to a greater or less degree in all successful treatment of disease—the process of gaining the patient’s confidence and impressing him with the idea that he is going to recover.
“The conversational attitude, the familiar manner of talking things over, the heart-to-heart discussion, where the physician must exert his good sense and feeling, and the patient be willing to be confidential” is the method which Déjerine calls ‘psychotherapy by persuasion.’ “It consists in explaining to the patient the true reasons for his condition, and [for] the different functional manifestations which he presents, and above all, in establishing the patient’s confidence in himself and awakening the different elements of his personality, so as to make them capable of becoming the starting-point of the effort which will enable him to regain his self-control. The exact comprehension of the phenomena which he presents must be gained by the patient by means of his own reasoning.... The part that the physician plays is simply to recall, awaken, and direct....”[35]
No one who has not had the experience of guiding mental patients in the way so lucidly expounded by the French physicians can form any adequate conception of the remarkable efficacy of these common-sense methods in restoring to those who are afflicted a normal attitude of mind. It is certainly saving considerable numbers of soldiers from the fate of insanity. These methods are not novel, even if the fuller comprehension of their mode of operation is only dawning upon us now. This point has been admirably expounded by Déjerine and Gauckler, from whose book we must quote once more:—
“May we be permitted to quote a few lines in which Bernardin de St. Pierre has defined, more exactly and better perhaps than we could do, and with a sort of prescience of what is needed, the very rôle that we would like to [see our physicians adopt towards their patients].
I wish that there might be formed in large cities an establishment, somewhat resembling those which charitable physicians and wise jurists have formed in Paris, to remedy the evils both of the body and of one’s fortunes; I mean councils for consolation, where an unfortunate, sure of his secret being kept and even of his incognito, might bring up the subject of his troubles. We have, it is true, confessors and preachers to whom the sublime function of offering consolation to the unfortunate seems to be reserved. But the confessors are not always at the disposition of their penitents. As for the preachers, their sermons serve more as nourishment for souls than as a remedy, for they do not preach against boredom, or unhappiness, or scruples, or melancholy, or vexation, or ever so many other evils which affect the soul. It is not easy to find in a timid and depressed personality the exact point about which he is grieving, and to pour balm into his wounds with the hand of the Samaritan. It is an art known only to sensitive and sympathetic souls.
Oh! if only men who knew the science of grief could give unfortunate people the benefit of their experience and sympathy, many miserable souls would come to seek from them the consolation which they cannot get from preachers or all the books of philosophy in the world. Often, to comfort the troubles of men, all that is necessary is to find out from what they are suffering (Etude de la Nature, 1784).”
Déjerine and Gauckler add:—