Psychotherapy Including the History of the Use of Mental Influence, Directly and Indirectly, in Healing and the Principles for the Application of Energies Derived from the Mind to the Treatment of Disease

Every surgeon feels the necessity of having his patients as quiet and restful as possible after operation. Any unfavorable mental influence will surely hamper the curative react...

In any discussion of the influence of mind over body, favorable and unfavorable, too much emphasis cannot be placed on the hold that dreads have over a great many people and how...

In spite of the gradual increase of comfort in life and its wide diffusion--far beyond what people enjoyed in the past--there has been a steady progressive increase in the numbe...

In recent years so much has been said about addiction to alcohol as a disease rather than as a habit that the treatment of it frankly as a disease in psychotherapeutics, even th...

To the minds of many people insomnia is one of the most serious ills to which human nature is heir. Most of this quite false impression is due to the sensational cultivation of...

Tuberculosis, in spite of all our efforts against it, remains in Defoe's striking phrase the "captain of the men of death." Pneumonia has preempted its {351} place in the statis...

"The real physician is the one who cures: the observation which does not touch the art of healing is not that of a physician, it is that of a naturalist."

Hypnotism is popularly supposed to be a mysterious psychological process by which susceptible subjects are brought under the influence of a person possessing some marvelous powe...

As the derivation of the name indicates, psycho-neuroses are functional nervous affections dependent on states of mind. They are not necessarily originated by the mind, though t...

Cerebral apoplexy is an extremely serious organic disease that seems surely to be an affection for which psychotherapeutics can mean little or nothing. When an artery has burst...

Fits of periodical depression, familiarly known as "the blues," occur in the experience of practically everyone. In some people they are only slight and passing. In others they...

Many patients suffering from various nervous symptoms insist that they are losing their memory or that it is becoming notably deficient in some ways. If they are a little on in...

To judge by the frequency of advertisements for laxatives of various kinds, constipation must be an extremely common affection. At least one out of every three city dwellers suf...

The power of mind over body for the relief of symptoms has been recognized, not only by physicians, but by the generality of men at all times. Every one has had experiences of a...

Anything that disturbs the sexual sphere in either sex, no matter how trivial it may be, becomes a source of worry and depression quite beyond its real importance. It is not unu...

Dreams, that is, thoughts and illusions and mental phenomena of various kinds that occur during sleep, have always been interesting to the psychologist, and have usually been re...

The story of the suggestive use of drugs shows us many suggestions employed even by distinguished physicians, men whose work is eminently rational and has lived long after their...

In recent years a great change has come over the popular mind regarding exercise, especially in the open air. It is well to emphasize at the very beginning the subject of too mu...

The more physicians see of affections of the feet and of painful conditions of the legs due to foot troubles the more they realize that the human faculty of the erect position b...

The difficulty of speech called stuttering has usually been considered rather as an unfortunate lack of control over the organs of articulation, somewhat corresponding to muscul...

During the transcription of this book Dr. Michael Stewart of the Mayo Clinic, Jacksonville, FL., diagnosed me with a retinal condition that had deprived me of the ability to rea...

In spite of the improvement in the general health of the community, due to more hygienic living, more healthy food and better ventilation, headache, instead of decreasing, has i...

As was emphasized in the preceding chapter, sexual symptoms are usually the subject of so much worry and disturbance of mind and become the center of so much unfavorable suggest...

While trying to take advantage of the influence of the mind on the body for therapeutics, it is important to remember that the body has a great influence on the mind. There are...

Hallucinations Differentiated from Illusions and Delusions.--Hallucinations are vivid impressions on the consciousness which appeal to their subject as strongly as if they were...

Though it has seldom been fully realized and has probably never been appreciated as in our time, one of the most important factors in therapeutics, in every period of the histor...

If discouragement and solicitude make a healthy stomach digest imperfectly, the same mental factors will play an even more serious role with a diseased stomach. Certainly withou...

In no department of medicine is favorable or unfavorable mental influence more important than in obstetrics. Unfortunately, unfavorable suggestion has here played a serious role...

While the theories of neuronic action we have discussed do not represent absolute knowledge, they are at least suggestive and helpful in psychotherapy. Whenever there are distur...

With the progress of biological chemistry, digestion came to be considered a purely chemical process. Now we realize that even more important than the chemical factors of digest...

Probably even more important than details with regard to the early hours of the day, is detailed information as to the day's work, the kind and character of the occupation and t...

After the vague pains around joints so commonly called rheumatic, and which occur so frequently that probably there is no one over forty who is quite ready to confess that he ha...

[Footnote 33: The position here taken, that acute articular rheumatism never leaves a mark after it, is entirely due to the observation that whenever cases were seen in which se...

The question as to how mind influences body, and body mind, has always proved a riddle to all but those with a special theory in the matter. The facts of the mutual influence of...

The development of science (meaning by that term knowledge with regard to physical nature in contradistinction to philosophy or the relation of nature to man) in modern times ha...

There are so many false and, indeed, from a scientific standpoint, utterly groundless notions with regard to heredity which, as a result of the popularization of science, have b...

An interesting phase of psychotherapy is found in the history of the applications of new scientific discoveries to medicine. The development of every physical science has been f...

There is a whole series of intestinal affections dependent on nerve influence that get worse and better under stress of emotion or relief from it. Probably the commonest of thes...

With regard to the major neuroses generally, very much more therapeutic benefit can be secured than in any other way that we know by reassuring the patient's mind, by careful re...

Any affection involving discomfort, pain, ache, or disability of the large muscles in the lumbar regions is likely to be called lumbago, not only by patients but by physicians....

There is a very general impression that it is possible, at least under certain circumstances, for one human mind to influence another at a distance without any of the ordinary k...

If, as all the authorities recognize, the attitude of mind toward organic heart disease is extremely important and when favorable is a most helpful therapeutic factor, it is eas...

Not less interesting than the therapeutic results obtained by men who in good faith were using inert remedies that they thought effective, are the cures obtained by men who had...

Morgagni, whom Virchow greeted as the Father of Modern Pathology, made a careful study of the pulse and especially of its irregularities. He had learned from the most careful pa...

In formal, deliberate psychotherapeutics the first and most important principle is the treatment of the individual patient, and not of his disease. It is much more important to...

Graves' disease, sometimes called Basedow's disease, though the Irish physician has a right to the name by priority, is often called exophthalmic goitre, because this term is de...

Much as may be accomplished by psychotherapeutics through favorable mental influence--the modifying of the mental attitude towards disease, diversions of mind from aches and pai...

Arthritis deformans has unfortunately been called by several names besides the descriptive term which, in the present state of our knowledge, is the most suitable for it. We do...

Obesity, popularly considered to be an over-accumulation of fat, is sometimes thought to exist only when there is the large development of abdomen which is more properly designa...

In getting the history of patients for diagnostic purposes the safest way is to begin with the getting up in the morning and then to follow out the various actions of the day. T...

In recent years we have come to realize that many of the so-called nervous diseases, or if they do not deserve the serious name of disease, nervous symptom-complexes, are really...

Practically every woman of menstrual age has more or less discomfort during menstruation. In most cases this does not rise beyond a heavy depressed {441} feeling shortly before...

Neurasthenia, from the Greek roots, _neur_, meaning nerve, and _sthenos_, strength, joined by the negative particle _a_, turning strength into weakness, means nothing more than...

Whenever exposure to cold causes a period of discomfort in almost any organ, except the teeth and certain definite nerves (for neuralgia has been taken out of the rheumatism gro...

The great authorities in medicine, the men whose thought counted for most in the development of not only the science but the art of medicine, the men to whom we look back as hav...

A state of mind that disturbs many people seriously, sometimes even producing physical results, because of the burden of dread that hangs over them, is that in which attention i...

In recent years the attention of physicians has been called to the fact that many people are made profoundly miserable by an unconquerable tendency to doubt about nearly everyth...

Much of what has been said with regard to alcoholism finds ready application to the treatment of drug addictions. At the very beginning it must be realized that there is no spec...

In the history of therapy a peculiar phase was the use of all sorts of materials, intensely repugnant to human nature and deterrent to all the finer feelings, but which, neverth...

How much can be done for organic nervous disease by attention to the individual patient and by favorable suggestion is illustrated in locomotor ataxia. This is, of course, an ab...

The heart is an organ so vitally important that we might expect it to be carefully protected by nature from any interference with its action through mental influence, emotional...

Many of the exhausting neurotic and psycho-neurotic affections so common in recent years are largely due to the failure of patients to secure such mental relaxation as will perm...

Without any good reason in the etymology or the history of the word, the term "tics" has now been generally accepted to signify certain involuntary movements, frequently recurre...

Two classes of patients come to the physician complaining of lack of appetite. The first and more important class consists of those who are eating too little, who are consequent...

Certain annoying incidents in connection with sleep annoy those affected by them so much as to arouse them very completely from sleep and make them wakeful for a time. Nothing d...

Grieving would seem at first glance to be one of the conditions for which the physician, especially if the etymology of the name of his profession be taken strictly, should not...

Pain, while always a dreaded symptom of disease, seems, with the increase of comfort and the gradual abolition that has come in our time of many of the trials of existence, to h...

Few people realize how powerful a factor for physical, as well as moral, good and evil is habit. The old expression that habit is second nature is amply illustrated in the most...

Two classes of patients frequently apply to physicians for relief from various discomforts. They are, first, people who have no regular occupation and who often are in what is s...

There are many changes of position that relieve pain, lessen discomfort, aid in excretion, and in the evacuation of material from the body, yet it is often found that very littl...

The term psychic contagion is often thought of as merely figurative. It is, however, quite literal. Many minds are influenced by what they see happening round them and induced t...

Cough under most conditions is so completely a natural reflex due to irritation from material which demands expectoration that to talk of the application of psychotherapeutics t...

"Maternal impression" is accepted as a specific designation to signify the real or supposed influence of emotion and especially serious trouble, which may affect the mother's mi...

The more carefully heart disease, and particularly individual patients affected by various heart lesions, have been studied in recent years the more it has come to be appreciate...

Nowhere in the domain of surgery is the influence of the mind more important than in the production of anesthesia for surgical purposes. It is well known that intense preoccupat...

Since we know that the basis of many nervous diseases is an obliteration of certain cells of the brain or of the spinal cord, or certain tracts of the central nervous system thr...

The series of phenomena that may be grouped under the term "faith cures" represent the oldest, the most frequent, universal, and constantly recurring examples of the influence o...

There are two classes for whom diversion is of the utmost value. The first are over-occupied with themselves; and the second group are so occupied with some one interest in life...

Grouped under the term "hay fever" there are probably as many different affections as there are under the term "chronic rheumatism." There are {369} people who, in the springtim...

Probably the most important single condition for the maintenance of good health and _good feeling_ is the carrying of weight normal for the height and age of the individual, or...

Two types of tremors come to us for treatment: those that are quite involuntary and occur when muscles are at rest, and those that are associated with voluntary movements. The m...

The place of mental influence in the treatment of skin diseases will be best realized from the role that we know the mind plays in the production of various skin manifestations....

For the consideration of its psychotherapy asthma may be divided into two forms--symptomatic and essential, or neurotic, asthma. Symptomatic asthma is a difficulty of breathing,...

One of the most important factors for therapeusis in the sense of the amelioration of defective motor conditions, the relief of disturbing sensory affections and the restoration...

There is a class of cases of difficulty of breathing allied to asthma and often called by that name, the study of which throws light on the origin and the relief of neurotic ast...

It may seem impossible to include prostatic hypertrophy, or the train of symptoms connected with it, among those affections likely to be benefited by mental treatment. The histo...

There is one variety of painful conditions of muscles and joints, often spoken of as muscular rheumatism or as chronic rheumatism and frequently the source of so much discomfort...

Under the head of Adjuvants and Disturbing Factors in the psychic treatment of patients come the various phases of life which make for and against such a favorable state of mind...

Indigestion is the characteristic disease of our time. There are few men or women over thirty who have not suffered from it. The working classes are spared the most, but with th...

Then comes the return from business. Here once more the ordinary method of getting on a crowded train, standing up to be pushed and jammed, to have all sorts of unpleasant thing...

Much may be done during the preparation for operation to put the patient in the most suitable condition for the manifestation of healthy reaction of tissue and of normal convale...

Paresis would seem to be one of the affections so inevitable in its course, so positively helpless as regards any medication, and so hopeless in its absolutely sure termination...

Probably the severest, certainly the most interesting of the neurotic conditions of the intestines, is muco-membranous colitis. The only lesions discovered are those which point...

The two forms of this affection, known commonly as true and false angina, are characterized by pain or anguish in the precordial region with reflected pains in other portions of...

Diabetes is an affection of metabolism definitely recognized as due to serious organic changes, though existing in several forms. We are not as yet absolutely sure whether there...

This is a chronic affection of the nervous system having for its most characteristic symptom a tremor, but with marked muscular rigidity and weakness. It is much more common in...

to a trial of the sympathetic powder. Four days after he received his wounds, Sir Kenelm dipped one of Mr. Howell's garters in a solution of the powder, and immediately, it is s...

So much attention has recently been directed to the subject of secondary personality by the startling phenomena described in numerous books and articles on the subject, that a c...

No feature of menstrual difficulty shows so clearly the influence of the mind over bodily function, and especially over those genital functions that are supposed to be involunta...

Most of the painful knee conditions of which patients complain are not directly due to true pathological conditions either of the knee joint itself or of its neighboring structu...

All physicians are convinced of the good that has been done by the extension of the application of surgery to women's diseases during the pest generation. On the other hand, the...

A striking illustration of the power of the mind to bring about the cure of ailments and symptoms of every sort is found in the history of the many nostrums and remedies that ha...

While the influence of the mind in producing painful menstruation and a much diminished menstrual flow is well recognized, the connection between the mind and an increased menst...

Surgery, a name derived from chirurgy--handwork--might seem to be dependent almost entirely on mechanical and technical skill, yet there has always been the conviction that the...

Prophylactic Objects.--From the earliest ages men have worn amulets, that is, objects often resembling jewelry, though sometimes the remains of animals or even of men, [Footnote...

One does not need to be a physician to be familiar with the curious psychic states which develop or are accentuated during the menstrual period. Practically all the peculiaritie...

_Similia similibus curantur_, like is cured by like, is a very old idea. According to the doctrine of signatures nature had put an external natural marking or a symbolical appea...

Etymologically tachycardia means rapid heart. There are two forms of rapid heart, that which is constant and that which occurs in periodical attacks. It is for this latter that...

This twitching affection, so familiar that it need not be described particularly, is sometimes classed as a pure neurosis, sometimes as a nervous disease with perhaps some organ...

While the phase of feminine sexual life which involves the cessation of menstruation is physiological and not morbid, it is so commonly associated with physical and mental sympt...

As people advance in years, it is a common experience that tissues injured years before are the source of no little discomfort and are particularly prone to be bothersome during...

Information regarding the mid-day meal will be of value to the physician in many cases. In cities, luncheon, likely to be rather an apology for a meal, is taken rapidly, and imm...

Bradycardia, or persistent slow pulse, is much rarer than the persistent rapid pulse discussed at the beginning of the chapter on tachycardia. Cases are, indeed, sufficiently ra...

Cervical Ribs.--Some interesting cases with painful conditions of the arms develop as a consequence of the presence of cervical ribs. It would be more or less naturally expected...

The most important element in Psychotherapy is the individual patient. Old Dr. Parry of Bath said a century ago, "It is much more important to know what sort of a patient has a...

Coccygodynia, or, as it is sometimes called, coccydynia, is a painful affection of the coccyx or bony end of the spinal column. It usually results from trauma, as a fall on the...