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Changing “Unchangeable” Bodily Processes by (Hypnotic) Suggestions: A New Look at Hypnosis, Cognitions, Imagining, and the Mind-Body Problem
Published in Anees A. Sheikh, Imagination and Healing, 2019
The phenomena discussed above can be elicited more readily in a good than in a poor hypnotic subject. Unfortuantely, the layman tends to believe that a good hypnotic subject is more likely to show the phenomena because s/he can be deeply hypnotized or can shift to a markedly altered state of consciousness. Although the good hypnotic subject can respond more easily to explicit or implicit suggestions to let go of extraneous concerns and to focus on the ideas that are suggested, this ability plays only a small role in curing warts, minimizing allergic responses, etc. Much more important in producing these kinds of effects is that the good hypnotic subject 1) is typically more cooperative and more motivated to do well and to please the hypnotist and 2) is better able to imagine or fantasize vividly and thus to experience in a fantasized reality those things that are suggested. The good hypnotic subject is able to imagine and fantasize so vividly that the imagined event is often difficult to distinguish from an actual event. These imaginative-fantasy skills, which have been developed over a lifetime as a result of a special life history, enable the good subject to respond positively to the large number of suggestions which involve imagining or fantasizing, for instance, to the suggestion to hear music (auditory hallucination), to see a person or object that is not actually present (visual hallucination), and to experience himself/herself in the future (age progression) or in the distant past (past-life regression). Of course, the good hypnotic subject also can respond easily to the type of suggestions used in traditional hypnotic inductions (e.g., suggestions of deep relaxation and drowsiness); however, this subject can respond well to the many other kinds of suggestions which utilize their ability to imagine, regardless of whether or not these suggestions have been preceded by a formal hypnotic induction procedure [3,19,150–152].
The Psychoanalytic Body
Published in Roger Cooter, John Pickstone, Medicine in the Twentieth Century, 2020
Finally, there has been a great deal of controversy concerning the evidential status of psychoanalytic theories. Some critics contend that there is simply no evidence for psychoanalytic theory, or the effectiveness of psychoanalytic therapies. However, one does not have to look far to find copious testimonies as to the efficacy of psychoanalysis, by patients, and those former patients turned analysts. The question is how one is to evaluate such testimony. On the one hand, in psychoanalysis, only the analyst’s account is accorded any epistemological status. Secondly, many aspects of psychoanalytic theories have built in features which discount the possibility of taking anyone’s testimony at face value — even if they speak of the benefits of psychoanalytic therapies (hence the favorite exemplar of contemporary psychoanalytic research is the infant: a subject incapable of verbal testimony and of contradicting analytic constructions). More seriously, rival psychotherapeutic schools — ranging from Jungian analysis to past-life regression therapy — also have ample ‘evidence’ in the form of first person testimonies, and if one accepts one form of such evidence as valid, no dear differential criteria exist by which to reject other forms. The prevalent epistemology of psychoanalytic and psychotherapeutic systems has been to assert the fundamental realism of psychological theories; though supposedly derived from the clinical encounter, they remain independent of them, and can be taken as veridical accounts of general human functioning. Far from a lack of evidence, the problem appears to be the excess of evidence for any theory imaginable. Contemporary psychoanalytic and psychotherapeutic training institutes, as Delboeuf and James long ago demonstrated apropos hypnotic schools, appear to be machines for the generation of new forms of self-evidence. What is notable about such testimonials is that they are not simply reports by subjects of particular events befalling them, but reports in which the subjects themselves attest to having undergone a transformation. In this sense, they are akin to the reports of religious experiences, such as those studied by James.34 One awaits an anthropology that could undertake a comparative study of these new forms of psychological experience.
Professor Pathirissery Uma Devi: on the occasion of her 80th birthday
Published in International Journal of Radiation Biology, 2022
Veena Kumari Hande, Manoor Prakash Hande
Immediately after her retirement from JN Cancer Hospital and Research Center in 2006, Prof Uma Devi acquired a new skill by studying for her Diploma in Clinical Hypnotherapy from the California Hypnosis Institute, USA. Currently, she is working as a certified Hypnotherapist and Past Life Regression Therapist at the Institute of Clinical Hypnosis, Kerala, India which she established. She has been counseling cancer patients and patients with critical illness. She has been helping people to get relief from chronic stress, pain, migraine, anxiety, depression, fears, stop addictions like smoking and drinking, and in improving study habits, concentration and memory in students, confidence building. She is also volunteering at the Pain and Palliative Care Center, Trissur, Kerala and actively contributing to the awareness about women’s issues and teenage problems. She has written a book on ‘Hypnotherapy: Healing through the mind’ published by Notion Press, India in December 2020 and is currently writing the next book in this field.