SILVA MIND CONTROL AND THE PSYCHIATRIC PATIENT

In November 1970 we attended a Silva Mind Control class in Philadelphia because we were curious about some of their claims. As the course progressed, it became apparent to us there were three persons who were definitely emo- tionally disturbed and a fourth whose stability was in question. What was the reason? Did the course precipitate emotional illness? Had they been ill when they arrived?

Were disturbed persons attracted to the course?

We discussed the possibilities with our colleagues, and many of them speculated that the course could precipitate acute psychosis in unstable individuals. This sounded plausible.

It is generally accepted that anything that facilitates regression may bring about an acute psychosis in someone who is so inclined. Sensory deprivation and hallucinogenic drugs can bring on psychotic-like behavior, and even such techniques as biofeedback and hypnosis can alter the psyche as well. Most psychoanalysts do not recommend • Clancy D. McKenzie, M.D.—Director of Philadelphia Psychiatric Consultation Service. Attending Psychiatrist, Philadelphia Psy- chiatric Center.

Lance S. Wright, M.D Senior Attending Psychiatrist, Institute of Pennsylvania Hospital Associate Professor of Child Psychiatry, Hahnemann Medical CoUege.

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formal psychoanalysis on the couch for the psychotic patient because it produces further regression. It remains undetermined how great this risk factor is, but there are claims that all these procedures have ended up in psychosis.

In 1972 two thousand students at a Philadelphia high school went through the SMC training with no psychiatric casualties, according to a responsible school official. This aroused our curiosity in another way. Since adolescents are already in a state of ego instability, hearsay claims that the course was dangerous for unstable individuals were thrown into doubt Our dilemma was compounded.

We saw 3 disturbed individuals in a group of 30 and did not know if they had been made better or worse. There were claims by some members of the scientific community of large numbers becoming psychotic. The high-school study indicated this was not the case. In fact some of our own patients, even severely disturbed ones, had taken the course and ap- peared to be dramatically benefited by it.

A review of the literature showed opinions but no actual studies.

Clearly, the only way to proceed was to evaluate and test individuals before and after the training. Over the next four years 189 of our psychiatric patients voluntarily went through the Silva Mind Control training while they were in therapy. Particular emphasis was given to a group of 75 patients who were diagnosed as psychotic, borderline, or psychosis in remission, before entering the course.

These we called the severely disturbed group. At some time in their lives, 60 of them had either been psychotic or had been hospitalized.

The 75 included everyone from the severely disturbed group found in McKenzie’s practice over the last four years who agreed to attend the SMC course (66 patients) and a sampling found in Wright’s practice over the last four years (9 patients). There were 7 severely disturbed patients who refused to attend, even when the course was offered free. They were not more disturbed than the ones who did attend.

Those who attended included the most disturbed; those who refused simply tended to be more rigid and inflexible in their thinking. Presumably they would not rep- resent persons who might get into difficulty during the course, because they were not likely to take the course in the first place.

Initially patients from the severely disturbed group were sent to the course one at a time and with great caution.

During the initial part of the study the patients were sent during a time of their remission. As the study progressed, however, the patients were sent during less-stable periods of their illnesses. Toward the end of the four-year period, 17 were sent while they were actively psychotic and delusional, and sometimes 10 or more went through the course at once.

In addition to their ongoing psychiatric treatment and evaluation, 58 of the 75 were given the Experiential World Inventory questionnaire before and after the course. The EWI is a 400-item questionnaire designed to measure real- ity perception. Drs. El-Meligi and Osmond, authors of the questionnaire, attempted to put the Rorschach in question- and-answer form, and arrived at a sensitive test for the marginal individual.

The primary purpose of the study was to find out which patients might become more disturbed with the training. In that regard the results were startling because only one patient became appreciably more disturbed after the course.

He was a 29-year-old catatonic schizophrenic patient who became upset two weeks after the course when he stopped taking his medication and began dating for the first time in his life. He was also the only patient who scored appreciably worse on the EWI after the course.

He did not require hospitalization.

Two other patients, one who had experienced psychotic depression and one with involutional depression, showed an increase in depression following the course, perhaps in contrast to the way they had felt during the training. The high feeling during the course was a marked contrast to their depressive state, and the experience was like taking a headache away from a person who had had it all his life.

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• returned it was more noticeable. However, these parents did score better on the EWI afterward, and they were asie to make use of the training. The involutional depressed patient was able to use the Mind Control program- ming later the same week and function with less anxiety at work;

The person with a history of psychotic depression is able to work through things in therapy she had previously been unable to handle.

26 other depressed patients, including involutional, psychotic, schizo-affective, and manic-depressive opes, were much less depressed after the course and •owed no harmful effects.

One woman reported a sudden feeling of sadness during ace of the relaxations. A man, not included in the 75, topped out after the second day because he had flashbacks of unpleasant Vietnam experiences. His condition was not (bought to be worse than when he began, but he did not tarn for further evaluation. (The relaxation puts persons it touch with feelings. Usually, because the mood of the poup is high and the focus is positive, the feelings are of wxrmth and love, but on infrequent occasion persons evoko sadness and unhappy memories.)

Still another patient (not in the severely disturbed group) • i- afraid of the things to be done on the last day of the coarse, and after a bad dream did not go to the last day. A paranoid schizophrenic man, age thirty, demonstrated jreat exuberance, approaching cyclothymic proportions, after the course. He tried various Mind Control techniques (> determine what to do with the rest of his life, and spent many hours checking out possibilities from programmed ireams. This was seen as an increase of compulsive de- feases. Nevertheless, as a result of his heightened activity, ie was able to go back to school to earn his Ph.D. He also vas able to discuss a delusional system he had experienced several years before, when he thought he was sent tele- pathically on a mission to kill someone. If he had not taken the course, this might never have been brought up and resolved.

In comparison with the relatively few and minor negative effects of the course, the positive effects and results would require a book to describe. The most consistent finding was one we were not looking for and did not expect In almost every instance there was an increase in reality perception.

Of the 58 who took the EWI, one became appreciably worse, 21 remained about the same, and 36 demonstrated an impressive increase in reality perception. Of the 21 who remained about the same, 15 had scores that moved in the healthy direction.

The average scores of the first 20 women who took the course were sent to Dr. El-Meligi, co-author of the EWI questionnaire. He lauded the dramatic changes that took place after the Silva Mind Control training and said that in some categories the before and after scores were like those of a person during and after a bad LSD trip (see charts A and B).

In each of the eleven categories there was consistent improvement Individual scores were more impressive (charts E, F, and G). Composite scores of the 50 per- cent of the men and women who improved the most are indicated in charts C and D. It is thought that no conven- tional psychotherapy could produce as much change in a week; indeed, it might have required months or years of therapy.

One involutional paranoid woman’s scores changed as much with the one-week course as they had on another oc- casion with eleven electroshock treatments and 12 weeks of hospitalization. After the one-week course, she was able to get on a bus by herself for the first time in four years.

Another woman, who was paranoid schizophrenic and acutely delusional, maintained some of her delusional thoughts after the course, but was able to go repeatedly to her “Mind Control level” to examine these thoughts, and each time arrive at clear, rational ideation.

Another woman, with an acute undifferentiated schizophrenic reaction, was too disturbed to fill out the EWL She was given her choice: shock treatment or Mind Control. At the end of the course there was clinical improve- ment, and she not only could fill out the EWI but she scored quite well on it

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Still another, a hypochondriacal woman with a history of arenty operations, was about to have another. While the sternal-medicine specialists were still checking out the ieart and kidneys, she used a Mind Control technique to program a dream that diagnosed an intestinal obstruction • the ileocecal junction. She discovered from the same cream that she had produced the obstruction and how and why.

Mind Control techniques enabled her to release the obstruction in a sudden, unexplained way one hour after ™e diagnosis was confirmed at the surgical hospital.

The mrt location of this obstruction was confirmed from records of previous surgery.

Another very distracted twenty-one-year-old woman was iangerously suicidal and in the early phases of an acute psychosis. The patient had assured us there was nothing -s could possibly do that would help, and that she prob- ably was just going to kill herself.

We sent her to the Mind Control course under careful monitoring. Much to our •apprise, she became remarkably calm, was more rational, ter thought processes no longer raced in all directions at •3o.ce, and she was less pessimistic. Hospitalization and high •nses of medication could not have calmed her as much. &e repeated the course two weeks later and again im- proved.

She had changed dramatically for the better.

Yet another very delusional individual, who thought he aould shrink people, took the course while hospitalized, returning each day to the hospital. Although he continued to think he could shrink people, he was remarkably calmed, =se affect was improved, other parts of the delusional system were fading, and he no longer spent hours ruminating •toer the meaning of simple parables.

He took the course | «toring his sixth week of hospitalization, and the changes •m more dramatic than during all of the previous five weeks. (See chart E).

An involutional paranoid woman was back to her normal self after the course.

Several others had a better understanding of their illnesses as a result of portions of the course.

Clinically, the severely disturbed group as a whole showed an impressive change. Only one became more up- set All the others benefited to some degree from the training.

There was an increase in emotional energy after the course and an improvement in affect Many persons with flat affect showed enthusiasm for the first time.

They had a more positive outlook about their future, and for some there was a better understanding of their psychotic processes.

Even some who maintained delusional thought were able to evaluate their ideation at the “Mind Control level” and arrive at clarity and understanding.

There was a greater relaxation and lessening of anxiety.

Patients learned to rely on their own inner resources to understand, cope with, and solve problems, and being able to do so gave them more self-confidence.

Some of the patients who had been psychotic found that their illness had enhanced their ability to function in an altered state of consciousness, and this added meaning to their prolonged illness and meaning to their lives. Neurotic patients (114 of them) showed no negative effects clinically.

Six of them took the EWI. Their scores improved, but not as much as the severely disturbed group’s, because their first scores were already so near the healthy end of the scale. Invariably the neurotic patients seemed to benefit from SMC training.

Those who continued to practice the techniques after training were able to alter their lives greatly, and even those who did not practice the tech- niques steadily were able to use them in times of personal crisis: when they had to cope with stress or had important decisions to make.

For all it seemed to be a mind-expanding experience, a revelation that they could use their minds in new ways. Group enthusiasm mounted toward the end of the course, and most persons experienced a higher and more positive emotional level.

In general, both the neurotic and psychotic groups improved after the course, as demonstrated on psychological examination and as determined clinically. Only one out of 189 patients became appreciably worse.