Hypnosis: A Medico-Moral Evolution

Author\u27s 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

Representation, Rightness, and the Fringe

So the central question here is phenomenological: What is the nature of the aesthetic zap? For it is this experience, or its promise, which gives art such a deep hold on human life. But the issue of representation, while secondary, is still pregnant with cognitive implications: Why is representation, of all the devices available to an artist, more likely to shift the odds in favour of eliciting and/or intensifying aesthetic experience? Assuming a Darwinian view of our species, it is likely that the answer to both questions will come from understanding how our capacity to enjoy art grows out of normal cognition

The Fringe: A Case Study in Explanatory Phenomenology

William James’ greatest achievement is, arguably, his analysis of the fringe — or, as he sometimes called it, transitive experience. In trying to understand this vague, elusive, often peripheral aspect of consciousness, James broke new ground. But in so doing he also began to lay down the first stratum of a radically new methodology, one that intersects first- and third-person findings in such a way that each is able to interrogate the other, and so further our understanding of both....\ud \ud But I think it is important to see that explanatory phenomenology can be completely scientific without necessarily having to (1) consider the neural substrate, (2) employ reductive arguments, or (3) operate at the third-person level. If I am right, explanatory phenomenology can be a remarkably plastic member of the set of first-person methodologies for the study of consciousness

Volition and Property Dualism

My overall aim here is to intersect two issues central to Max Velmans’ (2002) wide-ranging paper. The first concerns one of the most vexing problems in consciousness research — how best to approach the terms ‘mental’ and ‘physical’. The second looks at the phenomenology of volition, and the degree to which information presumably necessary for making voluntary conscious decisions is, or is not, present in consciousness

Home is Where the Hurt is: An Econometric Analysis of Injuries Caused By Spousal Assault

Using data on injuries presenting at the emergency departments of participating hospitals in the Australian state of Queensland we examine the nature of injuries resulting from spousal assault and compare them to injuries from nonspousal assault and accidental injuries. We ask: who are the persons most vulnerable to spousal assault?, Are spousal assault injuries more (or less) severe than injuries from nonspousal assault and accidental injuries? Do the recorded figures for assault injuries on womenunderstate the true number of assault injuries, and if so, by how much?Spousal Assault; hospital data; econometric estimation

Multimodal interactions in insect navigation

Animals travelling through the world receive input from multiple sensory modalities that could be important for the guidance of their journeys. Given the availability of a rich array of cues, from idiothetic information to input from sky compasses and visual information through to olfactory and other cues (e.g. gustatory, magnetic, anemotactic or thermal) it is no surprise to see multimodality in most aspects of navigation. In this review, we present the current knowledge of multimodal cue use during orientation and navigation in insects. Multimodal cue use is adapted to a species’ sensory ecology and shapes navigation behaviour both during the learning of environmental cues and when performing complex foraging journeys. The simultaneous use of multiple cues is beneficial because it provides redundant navigational information, and in general, multimodality increases robustness, accuracy and overall foraging success. We use examples from sensorimotor behaviours in mosquitoes and flies as well as from large scale navigation in ants, bees and insects that migrate seasonally over large distances, asking at each stage how multiple cues are combined behaviourally and what insects gain from using different modalities