PSYCHOTHERAPY, treatment of disease by the application of mental in fluence. The treatment takes various forms and the conditions of its efficacy depend on the psychical character of the disease and the responsiveness of the symptoms to psychical remedies. Since, however, there is hardly a malady that has not its psychical factors psychother apy can often supplement the work of ordinary treatment even in cases where it cannot effect a cure. It is estimated that nearly half the number of known diseases have a psychical origin, though, on the other hand, every illness has its physical basis also. The mental influ ence has to be of a character to fit the case. In the case of children the remedy is of the simplest and a mere prohibition or command or word of flattery and en couragement may have its due effect. There is no limit to the tricks and arti fices that may be used from harshness to sympathy, from bullying to wheedling, from playing on prepossessions and per sonal weaknesses to philosophical argu ment: all have their place in dealing with the nervously afflicted. The skill of the practitioner will be shown in his capacity for trained observation of the connection between cause and for applying his sug gestive influences accordingly.
Psychotherapeutic treatment in prac tice falls into a number of divisions, of which the most important fall under the heads of hypnosis, suggestion, re-educa tion, and psychoanalysis. These meth ods of treatment interlap more or less. Hypnosis, as here used, is based largely on the influence of suggestion, seeking means of fixing certain ameliorative ideas in the patient's mind, while his will and consciousness are held in re straint by conditions such as hypnotic sleep. Under the heading of sugges tions are included methods of inducing desirable emotional conditions by in fluences beyond the cognizance of the patient. Re-education has as its purpose the mental reconstruction of the patient by clarifying his mind and showing him what he is capable of performing and what he is not. PSYCHOANALYSIS (q. v,), is an extended form of his re-education, and involves the moral rehabilitation of the patient by leading him through free association to bring his whole mind into the open, however reluctant he may be in doing so, and thus reveal the re pressed desires, of which, according to the theory of Freud, the neurotic mani festations are the outward symbols and expressions.