We have available synthetic methods in hypnotic procedures. These give, it seems to me, positive results of value. If a subject is hypnotized and in this state a complex is formed, it will be found that this complex will determine, after the subject is awakened, the point of view and therefore the meaning of the central idea when it comes into consciousness, and this though the subject has complete amnesia for the hypnotic experience. In this manner, if the idea is one which previously had a very definite and undesirable meaning which we wish to eradicate, we can organize a complex which shall include that idea and yet give it a very different meaning, provided it is one acceptable to the subject.
To take simple examples, and to begin with a hypothetical case, but one which in practice I have frequently duplicated: A subject is hypnotized and although, in fact, the day is a beautifully fair one we point out that it is really disagreeable because the sunshine is glowing and hot; that such weather means dusty roads, drought, the drying up of the water supply, the withering of the foliage, that the country needs rain, etc. We further assert that this will be the subject’s point of view. In this way we form a cluster of ideas as a setting to the weather which gives it, fair as it is, an entirely different and unpleasant meaning and one which is accepted. The subject is now awakened and has complete amnesia for the hypnotic experience. When attention is directed to the weather it is found that his point of view, for the time being at least, is changed from what it was before being hypnotized. The perception of the clear sky and the sunlight playing upon the ground includes secondary images of heat, of dust, of withered foliage, etc., such as have been previously experienced on disagreeable, hot, dusty days, and some of the associated thoughts with their affects suggested in hypnosis arise in consciousness; perhaps only a few, but, if he continues to think about the weather, perhaps many. Manifestly the new setting formed in hypnosis has been switched into association with the conscious perceptions of the environment and has induced the secondary images and associated thoughts, emotions, and feelings which give meaning. But it is equally manifest, though many elements bubble up, so to speak, from the unconscious setting into consciousness, that most of this setting remains submerged in the unconscious.
In similar fashion I made a subject regard, metaphorically speaking, as a cesspool for sewage a river which was being converted into a beautiful water park by a dam.[[172]] It is scarcely necessary to cite additional observations.
Manifestly such phenomena belong to the well-known class of so-called “suggested post-hypnotic phenomena.” These we have already seen (solution of problems predetermined actions, &c., Lecture VI) require the postulate of a subconscious process. It is therefore difficult to resist the conclusion that, when the suggested phenomenon is the “meaning” of an idea, this also involves a subconscious process—that a hypnotically organized setting functioning subconsciously ejects the meaning into consciousness. In other words, the unconscious setting is a part of the whole “psychosis” or complex, a factor in the functioning mechanism; it is dynamic and not merely static, and is a functioning part of the “psychic whole” of the given ideas (sign, perception, and meaning). To use the analogy of the clock, the unconscious part of the complex corresponds in a way to the works and determines what shall appear in consciousness. In the case of the ideas of everyday life, and particularly of pathological insistent ideas, unconscious complexes can be shown, by methods of analysis and by interpretation, to be existent and to be settings. We therefore infer that they similarly take part in the functioning process of ideation. But, as I have said, as any idea has many different settings and associated complexes, it is difficult to determine by this method with positiveness which setting or other complex, if any, is in activity and takes part in the process. Hence the different theories that have been offered to explain the precise psychogenesis of insistent ideas.
Therapeutic application.—By similar procedures in a very large number of instances, for therapeutic purposes, I have changed the setting, the viewpoint, and the meaning of ideas without any realization on the patient’s part of the reason for this change. This is the goal of psychotherapy, and in my judgment the one fundamental principle common to all technical methods of such treatment, different as these methods appear to be when superficially considered.
It is obvious that in everyday life when by arguments, persuasion, suggestion, punishment, exhortation, or prayer we change the viewpoint of a person, we do so by building up complexes which shall act as settings and give new meanings to his ideas. I may add, if we wish to sway him to carry this new viewpoint to fulfilment through action we introduce into the complex an emotion which by the driving force of its impulses shall carry the ideas to practical fruition. This is the art of the orator in swaying audiences to his views. Shakespeare has given us a classic example in Marc Antony’s speech to the Roman populace.
The practical application to therapeutics of these principles of rearranging the setting of a perception by artificial complex building may be seen from the following actual case, which I have already cited in previous contributions.[[173]]
I suggest to B. C. A. in hypnosis ideas of well-being, of recovery from her infirmity; I picture a future roseate with hope, stimulate her ambitions with suggestions of duties to be performed, deeds to be accomplished. With all this there goes an emotional tone of exaltation which takes the place of the depression and of the sense of failure previously present. This emotional tone gives increased energy to her organization, revitalizing, as it were, her psycho-physiological processes [and by conflict represses the previously dissociating affect and sentiment]. The whole I weave artfully and designedly into a complex. Whatever neurotic symptoms were previously present I do not allow to enter this complex. Indeed, the complex is such that they are incompatible with it. The headache, nausea, and other bodily discomforts, pure functional disturbances in this instance, are dissociated and cease to torment. After “waking” there is complete amnesia for the complex. Yet it is still organized, for it can be recovered again in hypnosis. It is simply dormant. But the emotional tone still persists after waking, and invades the personal synthesis, which takes on a correspondingly ecstatic tone. The aspect of her environment, her conception of her relation to the world and her past, present, and future mental life have become colored, so to speak, by the new feeling, as if under a new light. But, more than this, new syntheses have been formed with new tones. If we probe deep enough we find that many ideas of the dormant complex have, through association with the environment (point de repère), become interwoven with those of the previous personal consciousness and given all a new meaning. A moment ago [her view was that] she was an invalid, incapacitated, exiled from her social and family life, etc. What was there to look forward to? Now: What of that? She is infinitely better; what a tremendous gain; at such a rate of progress in a short time a new life will be open to her, etc.—a radically new point of view. Now, too, she feels buoyant with health and energy, ready to start afresh on her crusade for health and life. Her neurotic symptoms have vanished. Such is the change that she gratefully speaks of it as the work of a wizard. But the mechanism of the transformation is simple enough. The exaltation, artificially suggested in hypnosis, persists, altering the trend of her ideas and giving new energy. The perceptions of her environment, cognition of herself, etc., have entered into new syntheses which the introduction of new ideas, new points of view have developed; thus the content of her ideas has taken a definite, precise shape. Whence came these new ideas? They seem to her to have come miraculously, for she has forgotten the hypnotic complex. But forgetting an experience is not equivalent to its not having happened, or to that experience not having been a part of one’s own psychic life. The hypnotic consciousness remains a part of one’s self (as a neurographic complex), however absolutely we have lost awareness of it. Its experiences become fixed, though dormant, just as do the experiences of our personal conscious life. The mechanism is the same.
The following letter from this patient, received by chance after these paragraphs were written, well expresses the psychological conditions following hypnotic suggestion:
“Something has happened to me—I have a new point of view. I don’t know what has changed me so all at once, but it is as if scales had fallen from my eyes; I see things differently. That affair at L—— was nothing to be ashamed of, Dr. Prince. I showed none of the common sense which I really possess; I regret it bitterly; but I was not myself, and even as [it was] I did nothing to be ashamed of—quite the contrary, indeed.... Anyway, for some reason—I don’t know why, but perhaps you do—I have regained my own self-respect and find to my amazement that I need never have lost it. You know what I was a year ago—you know what I am now—not much to be proud of, perhaps; but I am the work of your hands, and a great improvement on [my poor old self]. I owe you what is worth far more than life itself ... namely, the desire to live. You have given me life and you have given me something to fill it with ... I feel more like myself than for a long time. I am ‘my own man again,’ so to say, and if you keep me and help me a little longer I shall be well.”