At present there is a very general feeling among those who have had considerable experience with hypnotism, that in spite of the claims of certain votaries for it, there is no justification for its frequent or habitual use. It has a definite place in diagnosis, in certain difficult cases, and at the beginning of the treatment of certain forms of the psycho-neuroses. When repeated frequently it is not therapeutic, but is likely to produce serious results in a certain lack of self-control and tendencies to auto-hypnotization with deterioration of character. There is very seldom need of a repetition of deep hypnosis, and, as a rule, all the diagnostic benefit can be secured in one or two seances. Its continued use only illustrates the tendency noted at all times, in the history of medicine, for the unthinking or unprofessional to persist in the application of supposed remedial measures after they have been shown to be useless or even harmful. The subject well deserves further study, but investigations should be carefully made by men who realize the dangers, and who are not likely to be tempted to exploit patients and curious psychological phenomena for the sake of sensational reputation. The use of hypnotism for exhibition purposes, by men who are not physicians, is an unmixed evil, producing entirely wrong impressions on the public, and doing untold evil to the subjects employed. {163} SECTION III _THE INDIVIDUAL PATIENT_ CHAPTER I PSYCHOTHERAPY AND THE INDIVIDUAL PATIENT The most important element in Psychotherapy is the individual patient. Old Dr. Parry of Bath said a century ago, "It is much more important to know what sort of a patient has a disease, than what sort of a disease a patient has." Mental influence is not of the slightest avail against pneumonia or typhoid fever, nor constipation nor rheumatism as such; mental influence may be, and often is, of the greatest possible help to the patient suffering from any of these diseases.