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Abstract

Author's Introductory Note: About two years ago at the request of His Eminence, the late Samuel Cardinal Stritch, Archbishop of Chicago, we started an investigation into the subject of hypnosis with the intention of making a medico-moral evaluation. To faciliate our work we drew up a questionnaire and sent it to six leading Catholic psychiatrists: Father William J. Devlin, S.J. of Loyola University, Chicago, Ill., Doctors Francis J. Braceland of the Institute of Living, Hartford, Conn., Francis J. Gerty of the University of Illinois, Chicago, Ill., John J. Madden of Loyola University Chicago, Ill., John J. Nurnberger of the University of Indiana, Indianapolis, Ind., and to Edward A. Strecker of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Penn. These men mediately or immediately directed us to send the questionnaire also to the following doctors who have been using hypnosis in their clinical practice: Doctors Milton H. Erickson, President of the American Society of Clinical Hypnosis, of Phoenix, Ariz.; Merton M. Gill of Berkeley, Cal.; William S. Kroger of Chicago, Ill.; Lawrence S. Kubie of New York, N.Y.; Harold Rosen, Executive Secretary of the Society for Clinica1 and Experimental Hypnosis, of Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md and Lewis R. Wolberg of New York, N.Y. We also sent the questionnaire to Mr. Stanley L. Morel. a hypnotist studying in Chicago, Ill. Since all thirteen of these men answered the questionnaire in more or less detail, our debt of gratitude to them is very great. Some sent impartant articles and references to help in the study. In the body of the article where we quote these men without any specific reference we are quoting from their private answers to the questionnaire. Two other sources that we found especially helpful are the two official reports on hypnosis made by the British Medical Association. published in the British Medical journal. April 23, 1955, and by the American Medical Association, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Sept. 13, 1958.

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