y, for instance, from the mere sympathy and encouragement to the
method of reasoning with the patient about the origin of his special
complaint. Just now the medical profession moves along this line a great
deal. Of course no well-trained psychotherapist will make the blunder of
arguing with the insane. To dispute by argument with the paranoiac and
to try to convince him would not be only without success, but easily
irritating. This does not mean that the not less amateurish way ought to
be taken of accepting his delusions and appearing to be in full
agreement with him. A tactful middle way, preferably a disciplinary
ignoring attitude, ought to be taken. But it is entirely different with
the mental states of the psychasthenic. The mere statement and objective
proof that his obsession is based on an illusion would be ineffective.
He knows that himself, but he may take the disturbance as the beginning
of a brain disease, as a form of insanity, as a lasting damage which
lies entirely beyond his control. Now the physician explains to him how
it all came about. He shows to him that the symptoms resulted merely
from autosuggestion or are the after-effects of a suggestion from
without or of a forgotten emotional experience of the past. That is a
new idea to the patient and one which changes the aspect and may have an
inhibitory influence.

Of course, the patient does not accept the explanation at once. He feels
sure that he is not accessible to suggestion and that he has least of
all a tendency to autosuggestions, but the skillful psychotherapist will
find somewhere an opening for the entering wedge. He may develop to the
patient the modern theories of the origin of neurotic disturbances, all
with entire sincerity and yet all shaped in a way which gives to the
special case an especially harmless appearance. He may even enter into
experimental proof that the patient is really accessible to
autosuggestions. A very simple scheme for instance is to put some
interesting looking apparatus with a few metal rings on the fingers of
the subject and connect it with a battery and electric keys. The key is
then pushed down in view of the patient and he is to indicate the time
when and the place where he begins to feel the galvanic current. The
feeling will come up probably very soon in the one or the other finger,
and as soon as he feels sure that the sensation is present, the
physician can show him that there was no connection in the wires