MENTAL HEALING.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VI, Issue 469, 29 May 1912, Page 7

MENTAL HEALING.

Mental healifcg in our generation has come to stay, and it is of the .itmost importance that the medical profession should make up its mind juickly as to what attitude it should take up on this matter both for its own sake and also for the sake of the public. No doubt can exist in the minds of the unprejudiced that suggestion, both in the waking state" and in conjunction with hypnosis, is a powerful remedial agent in the cure of all so-called "func;ional" disorders, from hysteria to constipation. SUGGESTION. The drug maniac and the alcoholic have benefited on many occasions by such treatment exercised either :hrough the medium of a powerful personality combined with drugs, 01 iirectly by the hypnotist ; and other results have been recorded where post-hypnotic suggestion has been the means of curing sleeplessness and pain have been definitely organic. QUACKS AND ILL-REGULATED ENTHUSIASTS. •> With these results before -us it is possible to sympathise with those who are led away by quacks and illregulated enthusiasts who claim tc sure all diseases by processes which are grouped under various names, such as "Faith Healing," "Mental Treatment, " " Psychotherapy, " : 'Christian Science," and "Osteopathy." The success of all such treatments depends on the fact that those who undergo the treatment have faith in its efficacy and in the ?o>wer of the operator to do what he professes to do. HOW FAITH HEALERS SUCCEED. Whatever the pretensions of th< various sections of people who practise forms of faith treatment outsid< the body of medicine organised, it is apparent that the success of their ireatment depends on the receptivity :>f the patient combined with a caPa:ity for conveying suggestion 'on the part of the practioneer. It is without doubt that all jaiese people an able to euro certain "ihinctional" (lis :>rders, and also to bring symptomatic relief to many wlio are tin subjects of grave organic disease. - The "Hospital."