pheno jour menol Journal of Phenomenological nal ogical of psych Psychology 49 (2018) 197–213 ology brill.com/jpp Erwin Straus: Suggestion and Hypnosis Stephen J. Rojcewicz [email protected] James A. Beshai [email protected] Abstract Despite his major contributions to phenomenology, the writings on suggestion and hypnosis by Erwin Straus (1891–1975) have been underappreciated. In his German language publications of 1925 and 1927, Straus argues that we cannot elucidate the phenomenon of suggestion solely or even primarily through experimental design, a narrow natural scientific viewpoint, or an emphasis on abnormal or special states of dissociation. In contrast, a phenomenological study that begins with everyday experience demonstrates that suggestion is part of normal experience, and its understanding must include the possibility both of acceptance and of rejection. Straus’s arguments in these essays are enhanced by his later books and articles developing the I-Allon relationship, the process of we-formation, and the distinction of pathic and gnostic moments of sensation and perception. By fully situating the phenomenon within the Lebenswelt, Straus’s analysis of suggestion is a major contribution to phenomenology. Keywords Erwin Straus – suggestion – hypnosis – phenomenology – perception – Husserl In a series of two German-language publications, Erwin Straus (1891–1975), distinguished psychiatrist and phenomenologist, and later professor of both psychology and of philosophy as well as a clinical psychiatrist, demonstrated that the phenomena of suggestion and hypnosis can only be fully understood from the relational perspective between the recipient and the suggestor or hypnotist. Straus published “Wesen und Vorgang der Suggestion” [“Nature © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi:10.1163/15691624-12341346Downloaded from Brill.com10/02/2021 10:56:18AM via free access 198 Rojcewicz and Beshai and Process of Suggestion”] in 1925. On November 28, 1926 he presented “Über Suggestion und Suggestibilität” [“Concerning Suggestion and Suggestibility”] as an address to the 70th Convention of the Schweizer Verein für Psychiatrie, in Zurich, Switzerland, publishing it in 1927. In these two essays, Straus emphasizes that we can comprehend suggestion and suggestibility only through examining interpersonal relationships and how both the recipient and the suggestor understand the suggestion, including the recipient’s intimative grasp of the sense-endowing act which animates the suggestion. In so doing he makes a major contribution, heretofore underappreciated, to the phenomenological understanding of suggestion and suggestibility. Although scholars have drafted translations of these two papers, no English version has yet been published.1 This paper will examine Straus’s insights with particular attention to Straus’s emphasis on normality and everyday experience, and with attention to his later writings, including his formulation of the I-Allon relationship, his utilization of the pathic/gnostic distinction, and his exploration of “bad faith” and the “double bind.” Although pioneers in phenomenological psychiatry and psychology, such as Ludwig Binswanger (1966: 1–4), Eugène Minkowski (1966: 241–154), and Herbert Spiegelberg (1972: 261–279), have highly praised many of the contributions to phenomenology by Erwin Straus, scholars have not given comparable attention to Straus’s writings on suggestion and suggestibility. Part of the difficulty may lie in the fact that his two primary essays on this topic are available only in German in relatively difficult-to-obtain scholarly journals. The monograph “Wesen und Vorgang der Suggestion” constitutes a separate issue, Heft 28, of Monatsschrift für Psychiatrie und Neurologie (1925), and “Über Suggestion und Suggestibilität” appeared in a Swiss journal, Schweizer Archiv für Neurologie und Psychiatrie. Only one of these essays (“Wesen und Vorgang der Suggestion”) has been reprinted in the collection of Straus’s papers in their original languages of publication, mostly German, (Straus 1960). This essay is an attempt to remedy this situation by examining Straus’s thinking on suggestion and hypnosis in these two German publications, while situating his insights in the context of his other writings and within the phenomenological movement. 1 Straus read an English version of “Über Suggestion und Suggestibilität,” probably in trans- lation by Erling Eng, at Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, PA, circa 1974; this version is un- published. We are grateful to Donald Moss for providing his unpublished translations of “Wesen und Vorgang der Suggestion” as “Nature and Process of Suggestion” (1983), and “Über Suggestion und Suggestibilität” as “Concerning Suggestion and Suggestibility” (1998). The English versions of all direct quotations from these two essays, however, are our own, with the original German provided in footnotes. Journal of Phenomenological PsychologyDownloaded 49from (2018) Brill.com10/02/2021 197–213 10:56:18AM via free access Erwin Straus: Suggestion and Hypnosis 199 Straus argues emphatically that we cannot elucidate the phenomenon of suggestion solely or even primarily through experimental design, a narrow natural scientific viewpoint, or an emphasis on abnormal or special states of dissociation. Moreover he argues that suggestion is not primarily a patho- logical process, something absent from normal experience. Examining sugges- tion and suggestibility from the starting point of the hypnotic phenomenon of hypnotic induction of deceptive or fallacious interpretations of sensations (Trugwahrnehmungen) creates a bias from the very beginning (1927: 25). Instead of using pathological or extreme cases to explicate normal experienc- es, phenomenologists, according to Straus, should first study everyday behav- ior, and only then apply the findings to abnormal conditions. The common translation of Trugwahrnehmungen is “deceptive perceptions” or “fallacious perceptions,” but a more nuanced translation is indicated for Straus’s usage. Der Trug means “deception.” While die Wahrnehmung can mean “perception,” it can also denote “cognition,” “sensing,” “awareness,” etc. For Straus, perception and sensing are never deceptive or fallacious per se. “In sensory experience,” he writes, “reality is given without reflection” (1963: 356). The deception occurs in how the recipient reports the sensory experience to the suggestor. In hallucinations, for example, the perceptions of the patient may not differ from a normal perception, but the I-Allon relation, to be described below, is deficient in the absence of an object or stimulus, a deficiency unnoticed by the individual, and the I-Allon relation is also problematic because of the thwarting of a rational analysis of the circumstances (1966: 282–284). Similarly, in hypnotic suggestion, sensation itself is not deceptive, but there is a disturbance in interpersonal relationships, analogous to what occurs in hallucinations, and a similar thwarting of rational analysis. We can add that the Trug of Trugwahrnehmungen is in some sense a “self-deception in the interpretation of sensing,” an act of bad faith. In contrast to a pathological origin invoked by an emphasis on deceptions in sensing, Straus argues that “suggestion stretches widely into the realm of the normal” (1927: 5).2 Without disregarding any pathological elements of a hypnotic suggestion that gives rise to a fallacious interpretation of perception, the study of suggestion and suggestibility, for Straus, must begin with an examination of normal perception and sensation, interpersonal relationships and the phenomenology of everyday human experience (1927: 25). In “Wesen und Vorgang der Suggestion,” Straus writes: “The acceptance or rejection of a suggestion is in both cases not solely dependent on the meaning of the statement.” Rather, “it is always at the same time a response to the other 2 “… die Suggestion sich weithin in den Bereich des Normalen erstreckt” (1925: 5). Journal of Phenomenological Psychology 49 (2018)Downloaded 197–213 from Brill.com10/02/2021 10:56:18AM via free access 200 Rojcewicz and Beshai person” (1925: 29).3 Straus elucidates this interpersonal basis of suggestion by following Edmund Husserl in making a distinction between the logical content of a speech act (the expressive function) and the intimative grasp of sense-endowing acts conveyed not only by the words used but also through the tone of voice, inflections, speech pattern, vocal hesitations, etc. (the indicational function). Husserl and Straus call this intimative grasp of sense- endowing acts die Kundgabe, usually translated in English as “intimation” (Husserl, Logical Investigations I, § 7, 1900/1970: 189–190). While Kundgabe ordinarily means “announcement” or “proclamation,” most English translators have followed J. N. Findlay in using “intimation” as the English equivalent for this connotation of the German term. Dorion Cairns, however, in his Guide for Translating Husserl rendered Kundgabe as “giving cognizance of, (making known)” (1973: 78), and Goodwin has suggested “profession” or “expression” (Goodwin 1990:2). Describing intimation, Husserl writes that intimation can loosely be considered as a perception, but strictly speaking it is not a perception, and does not carry with it apodictic certainty. Husserl writes: An articulated complex of sound becomes a spoken word, a communicative discourse, only if the speaker produces the sounds with the intention to ‘express himself about something,’ that is, only