PSYCHIC DRIVING
D. EWEN CAMERON M. D.1
1 Professor of Psychiatry, McGill University.
1. Psychic driving is a potent procedure/p=m-/it invariably produces responses in the patient, and often intense responses.
2. The responses tend ultimately to be therapeutic.
3. To account for the effects of psychic driving the following working hypotheses have been set up:
a. Penetration of shielding.—Defenses of the individual against the full implications of his verbal communications are circumvented by using air conduction only, rather than the synthesis of air and tissue conduction to deal with which his defenses were organized.
b. Driving./p=m-/Constant repetition of the verbal cue locks the patient into continual response in terms of the community of action tendencies of which the cue is part.
c. Talking and Listening.—Working ideas concerning these and their bearing on the penetrating effect of driving have been set forth.
d. Dynamic Implant.—A given period of psychic driving may continue to produce additional effects after the period of actual driving has been terminated. To account for this, a premise has been advanced that a period of psychic driving may set up within the individual an area of intensified responsiveness, which calls him back repeatedly into activation of the area concerned.
4. Psychic driving lends itself to a great many modifications with respect to its application. These have been listed, and include autopsychic and heteropsychic driving, variations in the mechanical procedures and variations in the preparation of the patient for psychic driving. It is still too early to determine the various particular values of these; the material presented has been derived primarily from short-term autopsychic driving without adjuvants.
