§ 17. Mr. MACQUISTENasked the Pensions Minister whether he proposes to establish throughout the country cliniques for the treatment by means of psychotherapy of functional nervous affections (including so-called shell-shock); whether, if he is to do so, he will issue instructions that all pensioners recommended to these cliniques for treatment will be informed of the nature of psycho-therapy, that it is a form of treatment in which more or less hypnotic suggestion is used; and whether, in the event of pensioners refusing to accept psycho-therapeutic treatment, he will ensure that the pensioners in question will not be prejudiced by such refusal, but that all pensioners will have offered to them the alternative of ordinary therapeutic treatment?
§ Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANSThe answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. With regard to the remainder of the question, I would remind the hon. Member that psycho-therapy is a comprehensive term, including many forms of treatment of which hypnotic suggestion is the form least frequently used. If in any case hypnotism should be proposed as the most desirable form of treatment the man would be perfectly free to refuse it, and no penalty whatever would attach to his refusal.