Psychotherapy. James Joseph Walsh
rise to a very great variety of phenomena which border on the marvelous. It may be stated as a general fact that any state of the body, which is conceived to be approaching and which is expected with perfect confidence and certainty of its occurrence, will be very prone to ensue as the mere result of that idea, if it do not lie without the bounds of possibility. The case mentioned by Pictet, in his observations on nitrous oxide, may be adduced as an illustration of such phenomena. A young lady, Miss B., wished to inspire this intoxicating gas; but in order to test the power of the imagination, common atmospheric air was given to her, instead of the nitrous oxide. She had scarcely taken two or three inspirations of it, when she fell into a state of syncope, which she had never suffered previously; she soon recovered. The influence of the ideas, when they are combined with a state of emotion, generally extends in all directions, affecting the senses, motions and secretions. But even simple ideas, unattended with a disturbed state of the passions, produce most marked organic effects in the body.
With regard to the influence of the mind over the body in the matter of fatigue Müller is especially emphatic. He states just as clearly two generations ago the Law of Reserve Energy as James stated it in recent years. Of course, Müller was far beyond his time in everything, but then men who really think always are, and even Müller's accurate expression only represents what had been in the minds of thinking men in many previous generations. He says:
The idea of our own strength gives added strength to our movements. A person who is confident of effecting anything by muscular efforts, will do it more easily than one not so confident in his own power. The idea that a change is certainly about to take place in the actions of the nervous system, may produce such a change in the nervous energy, that exertions hitherto impossible become possible. This is still more likely to be the case, if the individual is at the time in a state of mental emotion.
Even this necessarily fragmentary and rather disjointed sketch of the main features of psychotherapeutics, as we see them recognized by the great physicians of the past, serve to show that mental influence has always been appreciated as an important element in the care of the individual patient.
The times when special attention has been paid to psychotherapy have certain special characteristics. Usually the periods have come just after a signal advance in medicine made through devotion to physical science. Great attention is given to the advances and for a time the individual patient is forgotten in the hope that at last physical science is going to solve the problems of the physical man. With the disappointment that always follows there is a reversion of feeling and men realize once more how important is the mental state of the patient, even in physical diseases. Then there comes an emphatic expression of the value of psychotherapy. We are at present in the midst of one of these periods, hence the widespread interest in the subject.
CHAPTER II
UNCONSCIOUS PSYCHOTHERAPEUTICS
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 having been great practicing physicians, have always used this remedial measure deliberately and have suggested to others that it should be so used. But the smaller minds have been satisfied to think that their drugs, their external remedies and applications, have been the sole sources of the benefit that accrued to the patient. Such smaller men are prone to think that they have specifics for disease, while the larger men hesitate and recognize that coincidence plays a large role and that the suggestive factors in therapeutics often deceive us as to the real efficacy of drugs and remedies.
All physicians have at all times used, though often unconsciously, the suggestive factor in therapeutics, and mental influence has had everywhere a large role in the treatment of disease. Only in recent years have we come to appreciate how many diseases are self-limited. In the treatment of these self-limited diseases all sorts of drugs and therapeutic methods achieved a reputation. Some of them were looked upon by generations as specifics, though we know now that they are almost, if not completely, useless so far as any direct influence upon the disease is concerned. Indeed, at times they were, per se, harmful rather than beneficial, and the patient literally got well in spite of the treatment, though the repeated suggestion of betterment often more than overcame the ill effect and helped in recovery.
REMEDIES PLUS SUGGESTION
Prof. Richet, the head of the department of physiology, University of Paris, quotes the expression of a French critic of medicine: "Hurry up and take the new remedy while it still cures. After a time it will lose its power." The power that is lost as remedies grow familiar is the suggestive element that accompanied them at the beginning. They were announced with a flourish of trumpets as a discovery in therapeutics, a number of cases treated with them were much benefited (because of the feeling that they must do good), and it was only after a great many cases had been treated, many of them under circumstances where patients knew nothing of the claims made for the remedies, and where physicians had little or no previous confidence in them, that their true place in therapeutics was revealed. Every physician of experience has seen the popularity of remedies wax and wane as a consequence of the attention called to them. We have new therapeutic discoveries every week. Enthusiastic articles are written about them, many of them in perfect good faith, and then after a time no more is heard of them, or they sink back into the long list of dubious remedies that may be tried when others have failed, but have no special claim upon us, in spite of the fact that some physicians continue to think them wonder-working.
"Time is short and art is long, the occasion is fleeting, experience fallacious and judgment difficult," as Hippocrates bemoaned 2400 years ago, and conditions in medicine continue the same. With suggestions and coincidence ever at work, it is still practically impossible to determine the intrinsic value of any remedy until after a prolonged trial. In the olden time it was still more difficult because there had been no such accumulation of experience as we have to guide us, and so it is not surprising to find striking examples of even great physicians recommending remedies whose main therapeutic influence must have been the element of suggestion.
Galen's Theriac.—Perhaps the most striking instance of suggestive therapeutics is Galen's famous theriac, various prescriptions for which have come down to us, some of them much more complex than others, so Galen is probably not responsible for all its absurdities. This remedy contained a host of ingredients, some of which neutralized others, and all of which taken together could have had but little effect save by a strong suggestion to the patient that as he was taking so many drugs he surely must be benefited.
Bernard's Theriac.—Almost in our own time another theriac came prominently before the public. In his younger years Claude Bernard, the French physiologist, worked in a little drug store in a country place not far from the farm on which he was born. There he found that the most called for remedy was a theriac. It was good for most of the ills that flesh is heir to and was bought in quantities by the old women of the neighborhood, who administered it on every occasion. The remedy was made in large quantities, but the secret of its composition in this particular pharmacy was what interested Bernard. Whenever any compound was for any reason spoiled in the drug store, the rule was, "Put that aside for the theriac." This much sold remedy then consisted of the most heterogeneous drugs. It was so diluted that it could do no harm, though it had quite sufficient taste and odor to make every one who took it realize that without doubt they were taking a strong medicine.
The effect of the knowledge of the composition of this wonderful remedy on Claude Bernard was the best that could have been anticipated. He resolved to study the physiological effects of drugs so that they could be given scientifically, and not in the hit or miss fashion that made possible the success of the theriac.
The custom of Bernard's country drug store, however, was not different from that of most country drug stores of the time. Unconscious psychotherapeutics we may well call it, because the main therapeutic factor was suggestion, renewed as often as the mixture was taken, that the patient ought to feel better, until finally whatever symptoms were due to over-attention and to concentration of mind on feelings of discomfort were diverted. Just as soon as the inhibition exercised by this over-attention ceased its hampering effect nature