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62 Oxford Terrace Paddington W2 November 15, 1919
My dear Violet,1
Psychotherapy progresses. Do not trouble to read further as (at your invitation) I am going to explain a little about it.
First a few definitions. Therapy means treatment. Psychotherapy means the treatment of disorders of the mind apart from those depending on disease of the brain. The Brain is the mass of grey and white matter which lies hidden in the skull, whereas the mind is that part of a person which stores memories, thinks and wills (if it does will at all). The brain is unlike the mind as a nerve is unlike the impulse that travels down it.
Suggestion is the active principle of almost all medicine; it is that by which a doctor ensures that a medicine will act. It is the influence of a man's personality and way of putting things over the progress of the patient. Everyone knows how effective and necessary suggestion is in affecting a cure. Hypnotism is a method of giving a concentrated dose of suggestion.
Now then we come to Psychoanalysis. This long word denotes a method developed by Freud by which mind disorders can be cured without the aid of Hypnosis, and with a lasting result as opposed to the temporary cure sometimes produced under Hypnosis. Psychoanalysis is superior to hypnosis and must supersede it, but it is only very slow in being taken up by English physicians because it requires hard work and prolonged study (also great sympathy) none of which are needed for Hypnosis. Only yesterday I saw a man suffering from shell shock put under Hypnosis by the man who looks after mental diseases at Bart's. This man could never do Psychoanalysis because it needs patience and sympathy and other properties which he does not possess.
The discharged soldier was helped a little, perhaps, by the Hypnosis,