Narcotherapy

Narcotherapy

Narcotherapy is a form of psychotherapy that involves inducing a sleep-like state of relaxation in the patient using drugs such as sodium pentothal. This method, developed in the 1940s, allows the patient to express their emotions more freely. The term "narco" comes from the Greek word "narke," meaning numbness, and "therapy" refers to the treatment aspect of the practice.From: Methamphetamine Use [2019], A Dictionary of the History of Medicine [2018]

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Published in Anton Sebastian, A Dictionary of the History of Medicine, 2018

Anton Sebastian

Narcotherapy [Greek: narke, numbness + therapeia, treatment] Method developed in the 1940s of using drugs to enable the patient to express his emotions. Barbiturates were one of the commonest drugs used to treat World War II patients who suffered from trauma.

The neurochemistry of hypnotic suggestion

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Published in American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis, 2021

David J. Acunzo, David A. Oakley, Devin B. Terhune

Multiple reports imply that elevated GABA produces increased suggestibility. However, these data come from studies that lacked placebo-controlled trials and robust measures of suggestibility and thus should be considered preliminary. Early research suggested that amobarbital, a GABAA receptor agonist, increases suggestibility (Eysenck & Rees, 1945). Recent research has highlighted how the abuse of benzodiazepines, which include a large number of sedative GABAA agonists, produces automatism amnesia where individuals will perform seemingly automatic behaviors and display elevated suggestibility often followed by anterograde amnesia (Goullé & Anger, 2004; Marc et al., 2000). Benzodiazepines have also been cited as increasing suggestibility in the context of narcotherapy in functional neurological disorder (Rosebush & Mazurek, 2011). Gamma hydroxybutyric acid, a GABAB agonist used in the treatment of narcolepsy and as an anesthetic agent, has similarly been reported to increase suggestibility (e.g., Bismuth, Dally, & Borron, 1997). These encouraging, albeit preliminary, results point to a clear need to more rigorously assess the impact of GABA agonism on suggestibility, including an assessment of mediating factors to distinguish between competing interpretations of these results.

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The neurochemistry of hypnotic suggestion