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The Nature of Autohypnosis in the Light of Clinical Experience

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 February 2018

Jonathan Gould
Jonathan Gould*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychological Medicine, St. Bartholomew's Hospital, London Broadmoor Institution
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In December 1950, Salter's valuable book What is Hypnosis? (1) was published in England, and some months earlier Strauss (2) had pointed out the wide implications for medicine of Salter's observations, were they confirmed, and indicated the more resistant nature of psychogenic pain, compared with organic pain, to amelioration by hypnotic suggestion. The present article reviews three very different cases in which, at some stage in treatment, an autohypnotic approach to pain was used, and a further case in which autohypnosis, as a means of relief of pain, had been discovered accidentally by the patient. An attempt is made to relate the results and information obtained from these cases to Salter's work and views on hypnosis.

Type
Part I.—Original Articles
Information
Journal of Mental Science , Volume 99 , Issue 415 , April 1953 , pp. 273 - 284
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1953 

References

(1) Salter, Andrew, What is Hypnosis?, 1950. London: Athenaeum Press.Google Scholar
(2) Strauss, E. B., “Intractable Pain,” Brit. Med. J., 20 August, 1949.Google Scholar
(3) Hudgins, C. V., “Conditioning and Voluntary Control of Pupillary Light Reflex,” J. Gen. Psychol, 1933, 8, 3–51.Google Scholar
(4) Menzies, R., “Further Studies in Conditioned Vasomotor Responses in Human Subjects,” J. Exp. Psychol., 1941, 29, 457.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(5) Kretschmer, E., Text-Book of Medical Psychology, 1952. (Eng. trans. by Strauss, E. B., 2nd trans. from 10th German edition.) London: Hogarth Press.Google Scholar
(6) Wolberg, L. R., Hypnoanalysis, 1946. London: Heinemann.Google Scholar
(7) Polanyi, M., Brit. J. Phil. Sci., February, 1952, 2, No. 8, p. 314.Google Scholar
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