Abstract

SummaryThe thought that I would like to leave with you is that although the patient is in an attitude of acquiescence when he is in the hypnotic state, he is not an automaton. Since you have ideas which you wish the patient to accept for his own benefit, you of course will desire that he should be acquiescent and receptive to those ideas. You know that he will be much more likely to act upon the ideas ifhe accepts them in an uncritical fashion. But at the same time you must realize that the hypnotized person is still an individual personality and he should be treated as such. He is not a pawn to be pushed around in a mechanical fashion. He still has his wishes, his desires, his ambitions, which, while they may be in the background at the moment, can always come to the front, and the physician should be as sensitive to these motivations and sympathetic with them when the patient is in the hypnotic state as he would be if the patient were in his usual state. If this is clone I am certain that the physician-hypnotist can find a very profitable use of the hypnotic state for the benefit of some of his patients.