In the nineteenth century, philosophers held widely divergent views on the role of dreaming. Some decried dreams as pointless and irritating, describing them as psychological activity that is “transported from the brain of a reasonable man into that of a fool”; others looked on them as nothing more than a degradation of the intellectual and [...]

What is hypnosis? The story of hypnosis started a few hundred years ago. The first record of the use of hypnosis on patients has to be that of Dr Franz Mesmer. He graduated from medical school with honours in 1765. He practiced first in Vienna and later in Paris. Pierre Janet, in his book Psychological [...]

Pain may arise from injury to our body cells. This is known as organic pain. More accurately it arises from the stimulation of nerve fibres as a result of injury to the body tissues. However, some organs of the body, such as the brain itself, are not supplied with pain nerves, and these organs can [...]

There are other misconceptions which people have about meditation. Some people see meditation as an escape from reality or a selfish preoccupation. It is neither. A normal meditation time is twenty minutes, twice a day. This hardly constitutes an escape from reality, nor can it be regarded as selfish. Everyone needs to have time to [...]

Psychotherapy has sometimes been the only treatment people have tried. It can be difficult to see the relevance of psychotherapy to anxiety disorders, but if we have a history of childhood abuse, or undergone some other trauma, psychotherapy is very important. Despite the sense of shame many of us feel over these issues, they do [...]

The disintegration of ourselves and our lives through the disorder and its secondary conditions brings a sense of hopelessness and helplessness. Suddenly, and in major contradiction to the fear of dying, we may find ourselves contemplating or attempting suicide. It begins to appear as the only way out. It is not. Part of the danger [...]

Almost everyone I have been in contact with brings up this point: ‘If only I had known what was wrong from the beginning. If only I knew from the beginning how to deal with it. The rest— the secondary conditions—would never have happened’. To minimise the disorders and prevent the secondary conditions an accurate diagnosis [...]