Treatment Of Warts By Suggestion
Psychosomatic Medicine 8: Mar 1946; 138-142
View Original Source →Abstract
Fourteen cases of warts were treated by hypnosis. It was suggested to the patient that the warts on one side of the body (the worst affected) would disappear. The other side served as a perfectly matched control. In 9 of the 10 patients in whom deep or moderate hypnosis was achieved, the warts on the treated side disappeared while those on the control side remained unchanged. This treatment was effective in all cases where the patient was hypnotised deeply enough to perform, on awakening, some action that had been suggested to him.
Case Details
Personal Characteristics
Children below three years of age and feebleminded individuals
Clinical Characteristics
Warts in children can be cured by suggestion more easily than in adults and verrucae planae juveniles respond to treatment by suggestion in a higher percentage of cases and within a shorter time than verrucae vulgates.
Remission Characteristics
Warts have a tendency to heal spontaneously. However, the average duration of untreated warts is more than ten times longer than that of warts treated by suggestion.
Treatment & Mechanisms
Proposed Remission Mechanisms
It is assumed that cure by suggestion and spontaneous healing are similar processes, and that successful suggestion merely accelerates the spontaneous healing of warts by causing hyperemia in the surrounding tissues.
Clinical Treatment
Treatment by suggestion
Additional Notes
The great number of other methods which have been recommended in the literature for the treatment of warts are probably unspecific, and, with the exception of radiotherapy and surgery, act mainly as disguised suggestion.