gram on "The
Nature of Hypnosis" at the annual meeting of the American Psychological
Association in 1959:

"It would be well to sound a word of caution against certain attitudes
which have become prevalent and which can be well illustrated in the
field of medicine. In this respect, direct suggestion is under the ban.
For example, a dictum, 'Never remove the symptom unless the cause is
understood,' is much emphasized. Its validity is greatly open to
question, since much of medical practice is direct symptom removal, as
only a little thought makes apparent.

"Another dictum generally followed is that the unconscious background of
symptom-complexes must necessarily be made conscious to effect a cure.
Reasonable and thoughtful consideration of the extensive role of the
unconscious in daily living and functioning renders this dictum much
less creditable."

I should like to discuss both of these statements in some detail as they
invariably arise in the mind of the individual seeking help through
hypnosis.

The first thought that comes to mind is that all the religious healings
cited in the Bible involve direct symptom removal. The cures that are
effected by religious devotees traveling to sacred shrines are also in
the realm of direct symptom removal. I have yet to hear a criticism of
this type of treatment directed at religious leaders or condemnation of
the religious shrines. These cures are accepted as evidence of the power
of faith or attributed to the super-natural. In these cases, nothing is
ever done to make the person cured understand the nature of the
unconscious mechanisms which contributed to his problem.

Religious healing cannot be dismissed by merely saying, "It isn't
scientific." A methodology is only scientific when it works. It is of no
value if it doesn't help the individual seeking help. We must face the
fact that not all people can be helped by the same psychological
treatment. We can readily see this in the following extreme example: An
aborigine suffering from a psychological problem certainly wouldn't be a
candidate for psychoanalysis as we know it. He could, no doubt, be
helped much more readily by a witch doctor. It also stands to reason
that the sophisticated Westerner would not be influenced by the
incantations of a tribal medicine man.

Going further, we find there are many schools of psychotherapy and many
approaches to solving man's emotional problems. The cure rate for all of
them, howev