In many cases of hysteria, the ideal treatment would be hypnosis. We used it when I was a resident, and it worked, just as it worked for Sigmund Freud and his teacher, the French neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot over a century ago. It worked because patients with hysterical symptoms are suggestible, and, having fooled themselves into the symptoms, they can be fooled out of them. Deception works, but in the modern age, in the age of informed consent, we are not allowed to fool patients about anything, even if it is the only way we can help them.
