Dianetics, Abreaction Therapy for the common man

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Dianetics, Abreaction Therapy for the common man
Author Howard Dickman
Type of Article Category:Academic Research

Dianetics the Modern Science of Mental Health’, written by L. Ron Hubbard, burst onto the American scene in May of 1950, becoming a nationwide bestseller, selling over 100,000 copies in the first two years of publication.[1] During World War II some 16,112,566 Americans served in the United States Armed Forces, with 405,399 killed and 671,278 wounded. There were also 130,201 American prisoners of war, of whom 116,129 returned home after the war.[2] In his book, Hubbard wrote that “There are not enough psychiatrists in the country to begin to staff the mental institutions.”[3] Dianetics had appeared at the right time and the right place. While Hubbard called Dianetics the modern science of mental health, the therapy is actually a form of Abreaction, a therapy developed in 1880.

Hubbard with his book

During my involvement with Scientology I was very involved with the delivery of Dianetics. Despite having left Scientology, I have kept tabs on it through the years as some of my friends from the 70’s are still active in the Church.

I’ve read where others have put forth that ‘Dianetics the Modern Science of Mental Health’ was written by L. Ron Hubbard, a science fiction writer. What is the implication there? Does it imply that Dianetics is science fiction or that because Hubbard was a science fiction writer, how could he possibly write anything important in the field of mental health.

Amos Jessup, who had worked closely with Hubbard during their Sea Org days, once told me in 2016, years after having left Scientology, he felt that Hubbard was the smartest man that he had ever known. As a member of Mensa, I could recognize Jessup’s high intelligence and therefore I gave credence to his claim about Hubbard. I believe that L. Ron Hubbard was a well-read man and that he was intelligent enough to understand Abreaction and update its procedures.

When Dianetics gets bashed I know that it does not deserve some of the criticisms. This report is presented to show how Hubbard borrowed from the therapy called Abreaction and to show that Dianetics is a valid therapy. Please keep in mind; this report focuses on what was going on prior to and up to including 1950.


Abreaction[edit | edit source]

Abreaction was created by Doctor Josef Breuer (15 January 1842 – 20 June 1925) a distinguished physician in Vienna, Austria. In 1880 his therapy strove to eradicate the psychic trauma in patients with hysteria. [4]

In 1895 Breuer wrote – “I have already described the astonishing fact that from beginning to end of the illness all the stimuli arising from the secondary state, together with their consequences, were permanently removed by being given verbal utterance in hypnosis, and I have only to add an assurance that this was not an invention of mine which I imposed on the patient by suggestion. It took me completely by surprise, and not until symptoms had been got rid of in this way in a whole series of instances did I develop a therapeutic technique out of it.”[5]

Breuer’s first patient, Anna O, “aptly described this procedure, speaking seriously, as a ‘talking cure’…”[6]

Sometime around 1888 and 1889 Doctor Sigmund Freud (6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939), an Austrian neurologist, and the person credited as the founder of psychoanalysis, started using the cathartic method pioneered by Breuer.[7]

Sigmund Freud

However, Freud stopped using hypnosis during Abreaction. In his words “I therefore did without somnambulism and conducted her whole analysis while she was in a state which may in fact have differed very little from a normal one.” [8] “When, therefore, my first attempt did not lead either to somnambulism or to a degree of hypnosis involving marked physical changes, I ostensibly dropped hypnosis...”[9]

Freud wrote about Abreaction “This procedure was one of clearing away the pathogenic psychical material layer by layer, and we liked to compare it with the technique of excavating a buried city.” [10] “Four months later I met the patient by chance in one of our summer resorts. She was in good spirits and assured me that her recovery had been maintained.”[11]

In Freud’s letter to Wilhelm Flies on June 28, 1892 he announced that ‘Breuer has agreed that the theory of abreaction and the other findings on hysteria which we have arrived at jointly shall also be brought out jointly in a detailed publication’.[12]

Breuer’s and Freud’s paper, Preliminary Communication, was published in the Neurologisches Centralblatt in Berlin, Germany, in two issues of the periodical: the first two Sections on January 1, 1893 and the remaining three on January 15.[13]

Around May of 1895, Breuer and Freud’s book Studies on Hysteria’ was published, which is usually regarded as the starting point of psycho-analysis.[14]

Abreaction was successful enough that it was used on Allied service personnel during World War II by service psychiatrists. Lt. Col. Roy Richard Grinker Sr., M.C. (August 2, 1900 – May 9, 1993), and Major John P. Spiegel, M.C. (March 17, 1911 – July 17, 1991) wrote the book ‘War Neuroses’, which was first published in September, 1943, by the Josiah Macy, Jr. Foundation for restricted distribution to medical officers of our armed forces. Their case reports and conclusions were the results of personal observations of hundreds of patients suffering from acute war neuroses in Ground Force and Air Force personnel in American and British troops. The book was prepared under the stress and pressure of conditions in a theater of military operations so that medical officers could profit by their experiences in the succession of campaigns scheduled to follow quickly in all parts of the world.[15]

Grinker and Spiegel reported that – “…war neuroses must be considered as psychosomatic problems.”[16]

However, due to the limited time for treatment of war casualties and the great influx of patients, Grinker and Spiegel used sodium pentothal to help their patients relive their traumatic experiences. Some of their patients were so horribly affected that they were unable to even speak.

Grinker and Spiegel reported that – “The response to pentothal narcosynthesis in the severe cases is dramatic… The stuporous become alert, the mute can talk, the deaf can hear, the paralyzed can move, and the terror-stricken psychotics become well organized individuals.[17]

Hubbard agreed with Freud and stated that hypnotism is not used in dianetic therapy…[18] “…as it is a wild variable.”[19]

Where did Hubbard learn about Abreaction.[edit | edit source]

Naval Hospital Oakland was commissioned on July 1, 1942 on the site of the former Oak Knoll Golf and Country Club near Oakland, California. There were twenty-five barracks-type redwood buildings that formed the nucleus of the sprawling "temporary" hospital the Navy had built to receive the thousands of World War II casualties that were to be brought back from Pacific battle zones. Construction kept pace with developments in the Pacific, and in 1945, at the climax of the war, the hospital was caring for more than 6,000 patients with a military and civilian staff of 3,000.[20]

In April of 1945, Hubbard’s duodenal ulcer flared back up and he was hospitalized at Oak Knoll Hospital, Oakland, California. At the end of July Hubbard took a month’s convalescent leave, and was again hospitalized (though spent some time as an outpatient) from the end of August until he was mustered out of the Navy on December 6, 1945.[21]

In Hubbard’s works we find that he did indeed spend time in Oak Knoll’s medical library where he most likely found books on Abreaction. Here are two references to that –

In Hubbard’s book “Mission into time” it was stated - “Thanks in great part to the unusual discoveries that L. Ron Hubbard made while at Oak Knoll in 1944 (sic), he recovered so fully that he was reclassified for full combat duty.” [22]

In Hubbard’s lecture – “Additional remarks, energy problems”, December 15, 1953, tape number 5312C15 2ACC-51 at 11:30 minutes he states -

“I was up there at ah Oak Knoll for about a year, Oak Knoll Naval Hospital. And I used to walk around — all I had to do — I was a line officer and all I had to do was take off one collar ornament, and I became a doctor and ah there was so many doctors running around loose up there that nobody knew who was what or anything of that sort… I got into the medical library down there once... The first moment I became ambulant and I could walk around, why I headed down to the medical library…Were you looking for some special ah ah subject doctor and I said well no I’ll go back and find it myself and after that I had the run of the medical library….And a little doctor up there by the name of Yankewitz, I used to prowl around there once in a while, Yankewitz was a pretty good guy. And he came, he headed this project, and it had to do with endocrine system. They were trying to do something for people released from Japanese prison camps. These people couldn’t eat. And if they did eat it went immediately into fat. They couldn’t absorb any protein. And I had discovered that there was an immediate index between protein and healing tissue. I used to talk to Yankewitz about it, and he’d listen tolerantly, because he didn’t think I was doing anything, see….And it was out of that year’s study that I concluded rather conclusively, on a very large series of tests, that the body cannot be monitored by what we call structure. And by monitored, I meant healed. It can be changed by structure, but only deteriorated. It’s a one-way route….I’m sorry that I don’t have the records. I’m sure they’re still at Oak Knoll, because I know nobody in the government ever read any records, they just make them.”

Dianetic theory and Abreaction theory[edit | edit source]

In Dianetics –

Hubbard wrote – “It contains a therapeutic technique with which can be treated all inorganic mental ills and all organic psycho-somatic ills, with assurance of complete cure in unselected cases.”[23] “The problem of psycho-somatic illness is entirely embraced by dianetics, and by dianetic technique such illness has been eradicated entirely in every case.”[24]

Book 1, first edition

In Abreaction -
Breuer and Freud wrote – ““For we found, to our great surprise at first, that each individual hysterical symptom immediately and permanently disappeared when we had succeeded in bringing clearly to light the memory of the event by which it was provoked and in arousing its accompanying affect, and when the patient had described that event in the greatest possible detail and had put the affect into words. Recollection without affect almost invariably produces no result. The psychical process which originally took place must be repeated as vividly as possible; it must be brought back to its status nascendi and then given verbal utterance.”[25]

Freud wrote – “It brings to an end the operative force of the idea which was not abreacted in the first instance, by allowing its strangulated affect to find a way out through speech; and it subjects it to associative correction by introducing it into normal consciousness…”[26]

In Dianetics –
Hubbard wrote – “Physical treatment resulting in improved physical condition will bring about hope or change a man’s reactions by shifting him on his time track. It may key-out engrams.”[27]

In Abreaction -
Grinker and Spiegel wrote – “It was determined to give the patient a few days’ rest, sedation, and adequate nourishment before specific therapy was initiated. At the end of two weeks the clinical picture had undergone considerable change. The patient was now out of bed…”[28]

In Dianetics –
Hubbard wrote – “Several cases were examined on which narco-synthesis had been employed. Some of these cases had experienced relief from narco-synthesis. Others had become a great deal worse.”[29]

In Abreaction -
Grinker and Spiegel wrote – “Narcosynthesis causes the patient to re-experience the intense emotions which were originally associated with the traumatic battle experiences and which have been perpetuated in various stages of repression up to the moment of treatment. At the same time, the action of the drug enables the patient to deal with these revived emotions in a more economical and rational manner, instead of by catastrophic defensive technics, which end in serious neurotic crippling. Under treatment, the patient actually synthesizes the emotions and memories connected with his experience, putting together what has lain fragmented between consciousness and unconsciousness into a complete whole, which corresponds in almost every detail with the original experience. Under the influence of the drug and the work of the therapist, there occurs a dosed release of the intense, repressed emotions, in quantities small enough to enable the weakened or broken ego, strengthened by the therapist, to resume its appraising and rationalizing functions. The ego, freed from the impact of the immense forces of the repressed emotions, in turn gathers new strength, and restores its contact between the powerful emotional drives and the world of reality, both past and present. In this state of renewed activity it can approach the traumatic situation and, to some extent, deal with it.”[30]

In Dianetics –
Hubbard wrote – “The duplication of aberrations of all classes and kinds in subjects who have been hypnotized or drugged has demonstrated that there is some portion of the mind which is not in contact with the consciousness but which contains data.”[31]

In Abreaction -
Breuer and Freud wrote – “We have stated the conditions which, as our experience shows, are responsible for the development of hysterical phenomena from psychical traumas. In doing so, we have already been obliged to speak of abnormal states of consciousness in which these pathogenic ideas arise, and to emphasize the fact that the recollection of the operative psychical trauma is not to be found in the patient’s normal memory but in his memory when he is hypnotized, The longer we have been occupied with these phenomena the more we have become convinced that the splitting of consciousness which is so striking in the well-known classical cases under the form of ‘double conscience’ is present to a rudimentary degree in every hysteria, and that a tendency to such a dissociation, and with it the emergence of abnormal states of consciousness (which we shall bring together under the term ‘hypnoid) is the basic phenomenon of this neurosis.”[32]

In Dianetics –
Hubbard wrote – “All mental and physical derangements of a psychic nature come about from moments of “unconsciousness”.”[33]

In Abreaction -
Breuer and Freud wrote – “A chance observation has led us, over a number of years, to investigate a great variety of different forms and symptoms of hysteria, with a view to discovering their precipitating cause – the event which provoked the first occurrence, often many years earlier, of the phenomenon in question. In the great majority of cases it is not possible to establish the point of origin by a simple interrogation of the patient, however thoroughly it may be carried out. This is in part because what is in question is often some experience which the patient dislikes discussing; but principally because he is genuinely unable to recollect it and often has no suspicion of the causal connection between the precipitating event and the pathological phenomenon.”[34] “But the causal relation between the determining psychical trauma and the hysterical phenomenon is not of a kind implying that the trauma merely acts like an agent provocateur in releasing the symptom, which thereafter leads an independent existence. We must presume rather that the psychical trauma – or more precisely the memory of the trauma – acts like a foreign body which long after its entry must continue to be regarded as an agent that is still at work; and we find the evidence for this in a highly remarkable phenomenon which at the same time lends an important practical interest to our findings.[25] “… the basis and sine qua non of hysteria is the existence of hypnoid states.”[35]

Freud wrote – “But how-ever these motor symptoms may have originated, they all have one thing in common. They can be shown to have an original or long-standing connection with traumas, and stand as symbols for them in the activities of the memory.[36]

Breuer wrote – “…unconscious ideas exist and are operative.”[37] “It is true that a spirit alien to the patient’s waking consciousness holds sway in him; but the spirit is not in fact an alien one, but part a of his own.”[38]

In Dianetics –
Hubbard wrote – “… the whole reactive bank was buried deeply under foggy layers of “unconsciousness” and was further safeguarded by a mechanism of the analytical mind which tended to prohibit it from touching pain or painful emotion.”[39]

In Abreaction -
Breuer wrote – “Our observations show two ways in which affective ideas can be excluded from association. The first is ’defense’, the deliberate suppression of distressing ideas which seem to the subject to threaten his happiness or his self-esteem.”[40]

In Dianetics -
Hubbard wrote - “Every percept – sight, sound, smell, feeling, taste, organic sensation, pain, rhythm, kinesthesia (weight and muscular motion) and emotion – is each properly and neatly filed in the standard memory banks in full. It does not matter how many aberrations a physically intact person has or whether he thinks he can or cannot contain this data or recall it, the file is there and is complete… There may be organic errors in the organs of perception, such as blindness or deafness (when physical, not aberrational), which would leave blanks in the banks: and there may be organic impairment such as partial organic deafness which would leave partial blanks.”[41]

In Abreaction -
Breuer and Freud wrote - “… for six whole months, one of our patients reproduced under hypnosis with hallucinatory vividness everything that had excited her on the same day of the previous year (during an attack of acute hysteria). A diary kept by her mother without her knowledge proved the completeness of the reproduction.”[42]

Freud wrote - “I found it even more surprising perhaps that it was possible by the same procedure to bring back numbers and dates which, on the face of it, had long since been forgotten, and so to reveal how unexpectedly accurate memory can be.”[43]

Grinker and Spiegel wrote – “Under treatment, the patient actually synthesizes the emotions and memories connected with his experience, putting together what has lain fragmented between consciousness and unconsciousness into a complete whole, which corresponds in almost every detail with the original experience.”[30] “Buried in the unconscious lies a photographically exact reproduction of the battle experience – and the powerful emotional response to it.”[44]

In Dianetics –
Hubbard wrote – “It happens that there is some small evidence to support the electrical theory of the nervous system. In pain there are very heavy overcharges in the nerves.”[45]

In Abreaction -
Breuer wrote – “We usually think of the sensory nerve-cells as being passive receptive organs. This is a mistake. For the mere existence of a system of associative fibres proves that these sensory nerve-cells also send out excitation into the nerve-fibres... If all the nerve-cells are in a state of mean excitation and are exciting their nerve-processes [axons], the whole immense network forms a single reservoir of ‘nervous tension’.”[46]

In Dianetics –
Hubbard wrote – “The word engram, in dianetics is used in its severely accurate sense as a “definite and permanent trace left by a stimulus on the protoplasm of a tissue.” It is considered as a unit group of stimuli impinged solely on the cellular being.[47] “These engrams are a complete recording, down to the last accurate detail, of every perception present in a moment of partial or full ‘unconsciousness.’”[48] “…the woman obviously was “unconscious” at the time she received the engram. She had no standard bank memory (record) of the incident beyond the knowledge that she had been knocked out by the man. The engram was not, then, an experience as we understand the word.”[49]

In Abreaction -
Breuer and Freud wrote – “It is of course obvious that in cases of ‘traumatic’ hysteria what provokes the symptoms is the accident.”[50] “ Now I already knew from the analysis of similar cases that before hysteria can be acquired for the first time one essential condition must be fulfilled: an idea must be intentionally repressed from consciousness and excluded from associative modification.”[51]

In Dianetics –
Hubbard wrote – “The engram is a powerful and vicious character only so long as it is un-tapped. In place and active it can be restimulated to cause innumerable mental and physical ills.”[52]

In Abreaction -
Breuer and Freud wrote – “Our experiences have shown us, however, that the most various symptoms, which are ostensibly spontaneous and, as one might say, idiopathic products of hysteria, are just as strictly related to the precipitating trauma as the phenomena to which we have just alluded and which exhibit the connection quite clearly. The symptoms which we have been able to trace back to precipitating factors of this sort include neuralgias and anaesthesias of very various kinds, many of which had persisted for years, contractures and paralyses, hysterical attacks and epileptoid convulsions, which every observer regarded as true epilepsy, petit mal and disorders in the nature of tic, chronic vomiting and anorexia, carried to the pitch of rejection of all nourishment, various forms of disturbance of vision, constantly recurrent visual hallucinations, etc.”[50]

In Dianetics –
Hubbard wrote – “The purpose of therapy and its sole target is the removal of the content of the reactive engram bank.[53]

In Abreaction -
Freud wrote – “For it is well to recognize this clearly: the patient only gets free from the hysterical symptom by reproducing the pathogenic impressions that caused it and by giving utterance to them with an expression of affect, and thus the therapeutic task consists solely in inducing him to do so; when once this task has been accomplished there is nothing left for the physician to correct or to remove.”[54]

In Dianetics –
Hubbard wrote – “Engrams, particularly in the prenatal area, are in chains.”[55] The key-in was necessary to activate the engram.[49] “Every engram a person has, if it has been keyed-in, may have its hundreds of locks.”[56]

In Abreaction –
Breuer and Freud wrote – “… our investigations reveal, for many, if not for most, hysterical symptoms, precipitating causes which can only be described as psychical traumas. Any experience which calls up distressing affects – such as those of fright, anxiety, shame or physical pain – may operate as a trauma of this kind; and whether it in fact does so depends naturally enough on the susceptibility of the person affected… In the case of common hysteria it not infrequently happens that, instead of a single, major trauma, we find a number of partial traumas forming a group of provoking causes. These have only been able to exercise a traumatic effect by summation and they belong together in so far as they are in part components of a single story of suffering. There are other cases in which an apparently trivial circumstance combines with the actually operative event or occurs at a time of peculiar susceptibility to stimulation and in this way attains the dignity of a trauma which it would not otherwise have possessed but which thence-forward persists.”[25]

Freud wrote – “When we consider the question more closely we must recognize that a process of this kind is the rule rather than the exception in the genesis of hysterical symptoms. Almost invariably when I have investigated the determinants of such conditions what I have come upon has not been a single traumatic cause but a group of similar ones. In some of these instances it could be established that the symptom in question had already appeared for a short time after the first trauma and had then passed off, till it was brought on again and stabilized by a succeeding trauma. There is, however, in principle no difference between the symptom appearing in this temporary way after its first provoking cause and its being latent from the first. Indeed, in the great majority of instances we find that a first trauma has left no symptom behind, while a later trauma of the same kind produces a symptom, and yet that the latter could not have come into existence without the co-operation of the earlier provoking cause; nor can it be cleared up without taking all the provoking causes into account.”[57] “… there is a nucleus consisting in memories of events or trains of thought in which the traumatic factor has culminated or the pathogenic idea has found its purest manifestation. Round this nucleus we find what is often an incredibly profuse amount of other mnemic material which has to be worked through in the analysis …”[58]

In Dianetics –
Hubbard wrote – “The patient sits in a comfortable chair, with arms, or lies on a couch in a quiet room where perceptic distractions are minimal.[59] The auditor has his patient “send” a portion of his mind to a past period on either a mental or combined mental and physical basis and re-experience incidents which have taken place in his past in the same fashion and with the same sensations as before.[60]

In Abreaction -
Breuer evolved the following procedure. He would visit Anna O in the morning and hypnotize her, after which he would ask her to concentrate her thoughts on the symptom they were treating at the moment. Breuer had her tell him the occasions on which it had appeared. Ann O would proceed to describe in rapid succession and under brief headings the external events concerned and these Breuer would jot down. During her subsequent evening hypnosis, she would then, with the help of his notes, give Breuer a fairly detailed account of those circumstances.[61]

In Dianetics –
Hubbard wrote – “Dianetic reverie leaves a patient fully aware of everything which is taking place and with full recall of everything which has happened.”[62]

In Abreaction -
Freud wrote – “When, therefore, my first attempt did not lead either to somnambulism or to a degree of hypnosis involving marked physical changes, I ostensibly dropped hypnosis, and only asked for ‘concentration’; and I ordered the patient to lie down and deliberately shut his eyes as a means of achieving this ‘concentration’.”[9]

In Dianetics –
Hubbard wrote – “The word auditor is used, not “operator” or “therapist”, because it is a cooperative effort between the auditor and the patient, and the law of affinity is at work. The patient cannot see his own aberrations. That is one of the reasons why the auditor is there. The patient needs to be bolstered to face the unknowns of his life… The auditor’s job is to safeguard the person of the patient during therapy, to compute the reasons why the patient’s mind cannot reach into the engram bank, to strengthen the patient’s nerve and to get those engrams.”[63]

In Abreaction -
Breuer wrote – “We often noticed that her dread of a memory … inhibited its emergence, and this had to be brought about forcibly by the patient or physician.”[64]

Grinker and Spiegel wrote – “… the medical officer is called upon to play a variety of roles. When the patient becomes convulsed with the violence of the terror, he must step in as a protective and supporting figure, comforting and re-assuring the patient, and encouraging him to proceed. If this is not done, there is a tendency for the initial protective reactions of stupor or amnesia to be re-established, and the patient makes no progress.”[65] “The activity of the therapist is vital to the success of the treatment. He must make contact between the partially restored ego and the anxiety situation. Buried in the unconscious lies a photographically exact reproduction of the battle experience – and the powerful emotional response to it.”[44]

In Dianetics –
Hubbard wrote – “Never try to tell him what his data means: he knows and he alone knows what it means.”[66] “Be surprised at nothing. Audit.”[67] “To criticize, correct or otherwise judge the preclear has no slightest part in dianetics and will do more to slow up a case than any other single action.”[68]

In Abreaction -
Freud wrote – “I shall never be tired of repeating that we are bound to accept whatever our procedure brings to light. If there is anything in it that is not genuine or correct, the context will later on tell us to reject it. But I may say in passing that I have scarcely ever had occasion to disavow subsequently a reminiscence that has been provisionally accepted. Whatever has emerged has, in spite of the most deceptive appearance of being a glaring contradiction, nevertheless turned out to be correct.[69]

In Dianetics –
Hubbard wrote – “The AUDITOR’S CODE should never be violated… All violations slow therapy and cause the auditor more work.”[70]

In Abreaction -
Freud wrote – “Her unruly nature, which rebelled, both in her waking state and in artificial sleep, against any constraint, had made her angry with me because I had assumed that her narrative was finished and had interrupted it by my concluding suggestion.”[71] “If we interfere with the patient in his reproduction of the ideas that pour in on him, we may ‘bury’ things that have to be freed later with a great deal of trouble.” [72]

In Dianetics –
Hubbard wrote – “Yesterday’s clichés and absurdities become, tragically enough, today’s engramic commands. One very, very morose young man, for instance, was found to have as the central motif of his reactive mind Hamlet’s historic vacillations about whether “to be or not to be, that is the question.” Mama … had gotten it by contagion from an actor-father whose failure to be a Barrymore had driven him to drink and wife beating; and our young man would sit for hours in a morose apathy wondering about life. … Most of engram content is merely clichés and commonplaces and emotional crash drives by Mama or Papa. … And when he suddenly learns about them, the preclear will have his laughs.”[73]

In Abreaction –
Breuer and Freud wrote – “The connection is often so clear that it is quite evident how it was that the precipitating event produced this particular phenomenon rather than any other. In that case the symptom has quite obviously been determined by the precipitating cause. We may take as a very commonplace instance a painful emotion arising during a meal but suppressed at the time, and then producing nausea and vomiting which persists for months in the form of hysterical vomiting. A girl, watching beside a sick-bed in a torment of anxiety, fell into a twilight state and had a terrifying hallucination, while her right arm, which was hanging over the back of her chair, went to sleep; from this there developed a paresis of the same arm accompanied by contracture and anaesthesia. She tried to pray but could find no words; at length she succeeded in repeating a children’s prayer in English. When subsequently a severe and highly complicated hysteria developed, she could only speak, write and understand English, while her native language remained unintelligible to her for eighteen months.”[74]

Breuer wrote – “A twelve-year-old boy, who had previously suffered from pavor nocturnus and whose father was highly neurotic, came home from school one day feeling unwell. He complained of difficulty in swallowing and headache. … The boy refused food and vomited when it was pressed on him. … I became convinced that his condition had a psychical basis. … In response to strong appeals from his clever and energetic mother, he burst into tears and told the following story. While he was on his way home from school he had gone into a urinal, and a man had held out his penis to him and asked him to take it into his mouth. He had run away in terror, and nothing else had happened to him. But he was ill from that instant. As soon as he had made his confession he recovered completely… The illness owed its persistence to the boy’s silence, which prevented the excitation from finding its normal outlet.”[75]

In Dianetics –
Hubbard wrote – “Now let us take an engram from a girl patient whose father was badly aberrated… Father: “Get out! … Get out!”.[76]

In Abreaction –
Breuer and Freud wrote – “… a little girl suffered for years from attacks of general convulsions which could well be, and indeed were, regarded as epileptic. She was hypnotized with a view to a differential diagnosis, and promptly had one of her attacks. She was asked what she was seeing and replied ‘The dog! The dog’s coming!’; and in fact it turned out that she had had the first of her attacks after being chased by a savage dog. The success of the treatment confirmed the choice of the diagnosis.”[77]

Freud wrote – “… every two or three minutes she suddenly broke off, contorted her face into an expression of horror and disgust, stretched out her hand towards me, spreading and crooking her fingers, and exclaimed, in a changed voice, charged with anxiety; ‘Keep still! – Don’t say anything! – Don’t touch me!’”[78]

In Dianetics –
Hubbard wrote – “When any phrase or word in an engram will not reduce, the same phrase or word occurs in an earlier engram.”[79]

In Abreaction –
Breuer wrote – “… there arises a somewhat complicated irrational ‘symbolic relation between the precipitating cause and the pathological phenomenon’, which, indeed, is often based on the most absurd similarities of sound and verbal associations.”[80]

In Dianetics –
Hubbard wrote – “In interviewing a patient, the auditor notes carefully without appearing to do so, what phrases the patient chooses and repeats about his ills… Repetition of such a phrase, over and over, sucks the patient back down the track and into contact with an engram which contains it.”[81]

In Abreaction -
Freud wrote – “… by pressing repeatedly I brought out what seemed to be a meaningless series of words… The peculiarity of this case lay only in the emergence of isolated key-words which we had to work into sentences; for the appearance of disconnectedness and irrelevance which characterized the words emitted in this oracular fashion applies equally to the complete ideas and scenes which are normally produced under my pressure. When these are followed up, it invariably turns out that the apparently disconnected reminiscences are closely linked in thought and that they lead quite straight to the pathogenic factor we are looking for.”[82]

In Dianetics –
Hubbard wrote – “A device in common use in therapy is the flash answer… The flash answer is the first thing which comes into a person’s head when a question is asked him.”[83]

In Abreaction -
Freud wrote – “I placed my hand on the patient’s forehead or took her head between my hands and said: ‘You will think of it under the pressure of my hand. At the moment at which I relax my pressure you will see something in front of you or something will come into your head. Catch hold of it. It will be what we are looking for. – Well, what have you seen or what has occurred to you?’”[84]

In Dianetics –
Hubbard wrote – “It does not matter whether the engram occurred two hours or ten years ago, painful emotion can be reduced from it. It is run exactly like any other engram, beginning at the beginning of the first shock with the patient returning to it and continuing far enough along it to adequately embrace its first impact. The aspect of this reduction is a pattern which does not much vary. If the news struck the individual into apathy, then, as he re-counts, he will, unless there is a severe emotional shut-off elsewhere, progress through the incident a time or two, perhaps, before he contacts it properly. Then there will come the tears and despair of apathy. Another two or three runs should bring up anger. Then further recounting (always from beginning to end as re-experience) brings the tone up into boredom. Further recounting should bring it to Tone 3 or 4, release or, most favorably, laughter.”[85]

In Abreaction -
Breuer wrote – “This example, too, exhibited a feature that was always observable when a symptom was being ‘talked away’: the particular symptom emerged with greater force while she was discussing it.”[64]

Freud wrote – “As a rule the patient was free from pain when we started work. If, then, by a question or by pressure upon her head I called up a memory, a sensation of pain would make its first appearance, and this was usually so sharp that the patient would give a start and put her hand to the painful spot. The pain that was thus aroused would persist so long as she was under the influence of the memory; it would reach its climax when she was in the act of telling me the essential and decisive part of what she had to communicate, and with the last word of this it would disappear.”[86]

Grinker and Spiegel wrote – ““Often one sees a patient, with a marked conversion symptom, begin to talk about his experience in a calm, detached manner, under pentothal. As the narrative continues, increasing charges of anxiety become released. As the calm is lost and the appropriate emotional reactions are liberated, the somatic symptom wilts and disappears.”[17]

In Dianetics –
Hubbard wrote – “After twenty runs through birth the patient experienced a recession of all somatics and “unconsciousness” and aberrative content.”[39]

In Abreaction -
Breuer and Freud wrote – “… Quite frequently it is some event in childhood that sets up a more or less severe symptom which persists during the years that follow.”[50]

In Dianetics –
Hubbard wrote – “The auditor, in his work, considers an engram erased when it vanishes, when the pre-clear can no longer contact any part of it, but only after the pre-clear has thoroughly re-experienced it, complete with somatics.”[87] “To reduce means to take all the charge or pain out of an incident. This means to have the pre-clear recount the incident from beginning to end (while returned to it in reverie) over and over again, picking up all the somatics and perceptions present just as though the incident were happening at that moment…. If the incident had a somatic, was recounted a few times and then, when its last new material was found, vanished, it is erased so far as the engram bank is concerned. It will no longer be “soldered” into the motor circuits, will no longer be dramatized, it no longer blocks a dynamic and is no longer an engram but a memory.”[88]

In Abreaction -
Breuer wrote – “Each individual symptom in this complicated case was taken separately in hand; all the occasions on which it had appeared were described in reverse order, starting before the time when the patent became bed-ridden and going back to the event which had led to its first appearance. When this had been described the symptom was permanently removed.”[89]

Freud wrote – “It was here that I learnt for the first time, what was confirmed on countless later occasions, that when one is resolving a current hysterical delirium, the patient’s communications are given in a reverse chronological order, beginning with the most recent and least important impressions and connections of thought and only at the end reaching the primary impression, which is in all probability the most important one causally.”[90] “… if she stopped talking but admitted that she still had a pain, I knew that she had not told me everything, and insisted on her continuing her story till the pain had been talked away.[86] “A picture which refuses to disappear is one which still calls for consideration, a thought which cannot be dismissed is one that needs to be pursued further. Moreover, a recollection never returns a second time once it has been dealt with; an image that has been ‘talked away’ is not seen again. If nevertheless this does happen we can confidently assume that the second time the image will be accompanied by a new set of thoughts, or the idea will have new implications. In other words, they have not been completely dealt with. Again, it frequently happens that an image or thought will re-appear in different degrees of intensity, first as a hint and later with complete clarity.”[91]

In Dianetics –
Hubbard wrote – “Not until you have worked out every moment of physical pain and discharged all the moments of painful emotion will the case be cleared.”[92]

In Abreaction -
Freud wrote – “… after the case had been completely cleared up…”[93]

Results obtained from Abreaction therapy[edit | edit source]

Page 133, War Neuroses

In Book 1, Hubbard wrote “About seventy per cent of the physician’s current roster of diseases falls into the category of psycho-somatic illness. How many more can be so classified after dianetics has been in practice for a few years is difficult to predict, but it is certain that more illnesses are psycho-somatic than have been so classified to date.”, and “The problem of psycho-somatic illness is entirely embraced by dianetics, and by dianetic technique such illness has been eradicated entirely in every case.”[24]

Hubbard’s statement about psycho-somatic illnesses was nothing new in 1950. In Breuer and Freud’s book ‘Studies on Hysteria’ the following hysterical symptoms were encountered during Abreaction therapy;

Page 132, War Neuroses

Abasia; Abulia; Amaurosis; Amblyopia; Amnesia; Anaesthesia; Analgesia; Anorexia; Anxiety; Aphasia; Arthralgia; Astasia; Asthma; Athetosis; Attitudes passionnelles; Auditory disturbances; Cephalalgia adolescentum; Clonic Spasms; Cold, feeling of; Contractures; Convulsions; Deafness; Délire ecmnésique; Deliria; Depression; Diplopia; Dizziness; Dumbness; Dyspnoea; Ecmnesia; Epileptoid convulsions; Erythema; Euphoria; Fainting fits; Fatigue; Gastric pain; Hallucination; Headache; Hemi-anaesthesia; Hyper-aesthesia, Hyperalgesia; Idées fixes; Insomnia; Macropsia; Migraine; Neck-cramps; Neuralgia; Ovarian neuralgia; Palpitations; Paraesthesia; Paralysis; Paramnesia; Paraphasia; Paresis; Petit-mal; Pseudo-encephalitis; Pseudo-peritonitis; Smell, disturbances of; Spasms, Speech, disturbances of; Squint; Stammer; Stupor; Tears; Throat constriction; Tic; Tremor; Tussis nervosa; Twitching; Vision, disturbances of; Vomiting; Walking, disturbances of, Zoöpsia.[94]

In Grinker and Spiegel’s book ‘War Neuroses’ they even created a table of “Source of Symptoms in War Neuroses”. See page 132 and 133, reproduced here.[95]

Closing comments[edit | edit source]

My involvement with Scientology, of which Dianetics is part of, was from August, 1972 to December, 1977, primarily at the Church of Scientology of San Diego (AKA San Diego Org). I learned how to audit Dianetics during the eleven months, March 1974 to February 1975, I spent on the Sea Org ship the Excalibur.

The author in his office, 1975

I was part of the Rehabilitation Project Force (RPF), where we had five hours of study or auditing each and every day, seven days a week for the entire time I was there. After my stint on the RPF I went back to the San Diego Org where I both audited and supervised auditing until my departure in 1977. The last time I did an auditing session was in the late 1980’s.

The many hours I spent auditing Dianetics routinely resulted in my pc’s coming out of session in a better mood than they had went in. If you ever wonder what draws people to the cult of Scientology, it’s the good things that are part of it. As you can see, in 1950 Dianetics was founded on a workable therapy, Abreaction, which was tested and used during the throes of a world war.

Dianetics helped people.

Review by Patricia Mathes-Kerr, CPT(ret), MSW, LCSW[edit | edit source]

The criticism with Abreaction Therapy lies with its use as a major independent treatment instead of its use in an integrative therapeutic approach. Abreaction has been proven most effective when used integrationally in treating PTSD, Childhood Trauma, Combat Stress and Trauma, anxiety, and other mental health conditions. Abreaction is not used as much in it's stand alone known form these days. It is used in combination with other approaches that focus on the experienced traumatic event to constructively process the experience and manage the associated pain. This writer sees this in current evidence based practices such as, but not limited to: Prolonged Exposure therapy, Cognitive Processing Therapy, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing Therapy (EMDR), and Dialectic Behavior Therapy.

Patricia Mathes-Kerr, CPT(ret), MSW, LCSW is a retired 21 year veteran of the U.S. Army, including combat. She served as an embedded Behavioral Health Officer in the Army, and now serves as the full-time 137th Special Operations Wing Director of Psychological Health for the Oklahoma Air National Guard.

Bibliography[edit | edit source]

Atack, Jon, let’s sell these people A Piece of Blue Sky (Colchester, Essex, Trentvalley ltd, 4th edition, 2018)

Breuer, Josef and, Sigmund Feud, Studies on Hysteria, translated by James Strachey in collaboration with Anna Freud (New York, N. Y., Basic Books, Inc. First printing, 1957)

Grinker, Roy R., Lt. Col., M.D. and, Spiegel, John P., Major, M.C., War Neuroses (Philadelphia, Pa, The Blakiston Company, 1945)

Hubbard, L. Ron, Additional remarks, energy problems, December 15, 1953, tape number 5312C15

Hubbard, L. Ron, Dianetics The Modern Science of Mental Health (Hermitage House, New York, N.Y. Fifth printing, August, 1950)

Hubbard, L. Ron, Mission into Time (The American Saint Hill Organization, Los Angeles, Ca. First printing, 1973)


References[edit | edit source]

[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] [21] [22] [23] [24] [25] [26] [27] [28] [29] [30] [31] [32] [33] [34] [35] [36] [37] [38] [39] [40] [41] [42] [43] [30] [44] [45] [46] [47] [48] [49] [50] [51] [52] [53] [54] [55] [56] [57] [58] [59] [60] [61] [62] [63] [64] [65] [66] [67] [68] [69] [70] [71] [72] [73] [74] [75] [76] [77] [78] [79] [80] [81] [82] [83] [84] [85] [86] [87] [88] [89] [90] [91] [92] [93] [94] [95]

  1. ^ a b https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/l-ron-hubbard-publishes-dianetics#:~:text=On%20May%209%2C%201950%2C%20Lafayette,a%20belief%20system%20called%20Scientology.
  2. ^ a b https://brewminate.com/a-military-history-of-the-united-states-during-world-war-ii.
  3. ^ a b L. Ron Hubbard, Dianetics The Modern Science of Mental Health, (New York, 1950), 168-169.
  4. ^ a b Breuer, Josef and, Sigmund Feud, Studies on Hysteria, translated by James Strachey in collaboration with Anna Freud (New York, 1957), 22.
  5. ^ a b Ibid, 46.
  6. ^ a b Ibid, 30.
  7. ^ a b Ibid, xii.
  8. ^ a b Ibid, 107.
  9. ^ a b c Ibid, 109.
  10. ^ a b Ibid, 139.
  11. ^ a b Ibid, 121.
  12. ^ a b Ibid, xiii.
  13. ^ a b Ibid, xiv.
  14. ^ a b Ibid, xv-xvi.
  15. ^ a b Grinker, Roy R., Lt. Col., M.D. and, Spiegel, John P., Major, M.C., War Neuroses (Philadelphia, 1945), xvii.
  16. ^ a b Ibid, 128.
  17. ^ a b c Ibid, 82.
  18. ^ a b L. Ron Hubbard, Dianetics The Modern Science of Mental Health, (New York, 1950), 12.
  19. ^ a b Ibid, 56.
  20. ^ a b https://www.militarymuseum.org/NavHospOakland.html.
  21. ^ a b Atack, Jon, let’s sell these people A Piece of Blue Sky, (Colchester, Essex, Trentvalley ltd, 4th edition, 2018), 86,89.
  22. ^ a b Hubbard, L. Ron, Mission into Time, (The American Saint Hill Organization, Los Angeles, Ca. First printing, 1973), 11.
  23. ^ a b L. Ron Hubbard, Dianetics The Modern Science of Mental Health, (New York, 1950), 6.
  24. ^ a b c Ibid, 91.
  25. ^ a b c d Breuer, Josef and, Sigmund Feud, Studies on Hysteria, translated by James Strachey in collaboration with Anna Freud (New York, 1957), 6.
  26. ^ a b Ibid, 255.
  27. ^ a b L. Ron Hubbard, Dianetics The Modern Science of Mental Health, (New York, 1950), 150.
  28. ^ a b Grinker, Roy R., Lt. Col., M.D. and, Spiegel, John P., Major, M.C., War Neuroses (Philadelphia, 1945), 6.
  29. ^ a b L. Ron Hubbard, Dianetics The Modern Science of Mental Health, (New York, 1950), 122-123.
  30. ^ a b c d Grinker, Roy R., Lt. Col., M.D. and, Spiegel, John P., Major, M.C., War Neuroses (Philadelphia, 1945), 78.
  31. ^ a b L. Ron Hubbard, Dianetics The Modern Science of Mental Health, (New York, 1950), 58.
  32. ^ a b Breuer, Josef and, Sigmund Feud, Studies on Hysteria, translated by James Strachey in collaboration with Anna Freud (New York, 1957), 11-12.
  33. ^ a b L. Ron Hubbard, Dianetics The Modern Science of Mental Health, (New York, 1950), 54.
  34. ^ a b Breuer, Josef and, Sigmund Feud, Studies on Hysteria, translated by James Strachey in collaboration with Anna Freud (New York, 1957), 3.
  35. ^ a b Ibid, 12.
  36. ^ a b Ibid, 95.
  37. ^ a b Ibid, 221.
  38. ^ a b Ibid, 250.
  39. ^ a b c L. Ron Hubbard, Dianetics The Modern Science of Mental Health, (New York, 1950), 126.
  40. ^ a b Breuer, Josef and, Sigmund Feud, Studies on Hysteria, translated by James Strachey in collaboration with Anna Freud (New York, 1957), 214.
  41. ^ a b L. Ron Hubbard, Dianetics The Modern Science of Mental Health, (New York, 1950), 46.
  42. ^ a b Breuer, Josef and, Sigmund Feud, Studies on Hysteria, translated by James Strachey in collaboration with Anna Freud (New York, 1957), 9.
  43. ^ a b Ibid, 111.
  44. ^ a b c Ibid, 136.
  45. ^ a b L. Ron Hubbard, Dianetics The Modern Science of Mental Health, (New York, 1950), 53.
  46. ^ a b Breuer, Josef and, Sigmund Feud, Studies on Hysteria, translated by James Strachey in collaboration with Anna Freud (New York, 1957), 194 footnote.
  47. ^ a b L. Ron Hubbard, Dianetics The Modern Science of Mental Health, (New York, 1950), 60 footnote.
  48. ^ a b Ibid, 60.
  49. ^ a b c Ibid, 67.
  50. ^ a b c d Breuer, Josef and, Sigmund Feud, Studies on Hysteria, translated by James Strachey in collaboration with Anna Freud (New York, 1957), 4.
  51. ^ a b Ibid, 116.
  52. ^ a b L. Ron Hubbard, Dianetics The Modern Science of Mental Health, (New York, 1950), 166.
  53. ^ a b Ibid, 174.
  54. ^ a b Breuer, Josef and, Sigmund Feud, Studies on Hysteria, translated by James Strachey in collaboration with Anna Freud (New York, 1957), 283.
  55. ^ a b L. Ron Hubbard, Dianetics The Modern Science of Mental Health, (New York, 1950), 299.
  56. ^ a b Ibid, 142.
  57. ^ a b Breuer, Josef and, Sigmund Feud, Studies on Hysteria, translated by James Strachey in collaboration with Anna Freud (New York, 1957), 173.
  58. ^ a b Ibid, 288.
  59. ^ a b L. Ron Hubbard, Dianetics The Modern Science of Mental Health, (New York, 1950), 199.
  60. ^ a b Ibid, 11.
  61. ^ a b Breuer, Josef and, Sigmund Feud, Studies on Hysteria, translated by James Strachey in collaboration with Anna Freud (New York, 1957), 36.
  62. ^ a b L. Ron Hubbard, Dianetics The Modern Science of Mental Health, (New York, 1950), 165.
  63. ^ a b Ibid, 175.
  64. ^ a b c Breuer, Josef and, Sigmund Feud, Studies on Hysteria, translated by James Strachey in collaboration with Anna Freud (New York, 1957), 37.
  65. ^ a b Grinker, Roy R., Lt. Col., M.D. and, Spiegel, John P., Major, M.C., War Neuroses (Philadelphia, 1945), 81.
  66. ^ a b L. Ron Hubbard, Dianetics The Modern Science of Mental Health, (New York, 1950), 281.
  67. ^ a b Ibid, 282.
  68. ^ a b Ibid, 396-397.
  69. ^ a b Breuer, Josef and, Sigmund Feud, Studies on Hysteria, translated by James Strachey in collaboration with Anna Freud (New York, 1957), 300.
  70. ^ a b L. Ron Hubbard, Dianetics The Modern Science of Mental Health, (New York, 1950), 178.
  71. ^ a b Breuer, Josef and, Sigmund Feud, Studies on Hysteria, translated by James Strachey in collaboration with Anna Freud (New York, 1957), 62 footnote.
  72. ^ a b Ibid, 292.
  73. ^ a b L. Ron Hubbard, Dianetics The Modern Science of Mental Health, (New York, 1950), 183.
  74. ^ a b Breuer, Josef and, Sigmund Feud, Studies on Hysteria, translated by James Strachey in collaboration with Anna Freud (New York, 1957), 4-5.
  75. ^ a b Ibid, 211-212.
  76. ^ a b L. Ron Hubbard, Dianetics The Modern Science of Mental Health, (New York, 1950), 211.
  77. ^ a b Breuer, Josef and, Sigmund Feud, Studies on Hysteria, translated by James Strachey in collaboration with Anna Freud (New York, 1957), 14.
  78. ^ a b Ibid, 49.
  79. ^ a b L. Ron Hubbard, Dianetics The Modern Science of Mental Health, (New York, 1950), 328.
  80. ^ a b Breuer, Josef and, Sigmund Feud, Studies on Hysteria, translated by James Strachey in collaboration with Anna Freud (New York, 1957), 216.
  81. ^ a b L. Ron Hubbard, Dianetics The Modern Science of Mental Health, (New York, 1950), 215.
  82. ^ a b Breuer, Josef and, Sigmund Feud, Studies on Hysteria, translated by James Strachey in collaboration with Anna Freud (New York, 1957), 276.
  83. ^ a b L. Ron Hubbard, Dianetics The Modern Science of Mental Health, (New York, 1950), 296.
  84. ^ a b Breuer, Josef and, Sigmund Feud, Studies on Hysteria, translated by James Strachey in collaboration with Anna Freud (New York, 1957), 110.
  85. ^ a b L. Ron Hubbard, Dianetics The Modern Science of Mental Health, (New York, 1950), 324.
  86. ^ a b c Breuer, Josef and, Sigmund Feud, Studies on Hysteria, translated by James Strachey in collaboration with Anna Freud (New York, 1957), 148.
  87. ^ a b L. Ron Hubbard, Dianetics The Modern Science of Mental Health, (New York, 1950), 205-206.
  88. ^ a b Ibid, 287.
  89. ^ a b Breuer, Josef and, Sigmund Feud, Studies on Hysteria, translated by James Strachey in collaboration with Anna Freud (New York, 1957), 35.
  90. ^ a b Ibid, 75 footnote.
  91. ^ a b Ibid, 296.
  92. ^ a b L. Ron Hubbard, Dianetics The Modern Science of Mental Health, (New York, 1950), 312.
  93. ^ a b Breuer, Josef and, Sigmund Feud, Studies on Hysteria, translated by James Strachey in collaboration with Anna Freud (New York, 1957), 291.
  94. ^ a b Ibid, 329.
  95. ^ a b Grinker, Roy R., Lt. Col., M.D. and, Spiegel, John P., Major, M.C., War Neuroses (Philadelphia, 1945), 132-133.

1. DIA (Greek) through, NOUS (Greek) mind, deals with a system of mental image pictures in relation to psychic (spiritual) trauma. The mental image pictures are believed on the basis of personal revelation to be comprising mental activity created and formed by the spirit, and not by the body or brain. (BPL 24 Sept 73 V) 2. Dn addresses the body. Thus Dn is used to knock out and erase illnesses, unwanted sensations, misemotion, somatics, pain, etc. Dn came before Scn. It disposed of body illness and the difficulties a thetan was having with his body. (HCOB 22 Apr 69)...more

3. a network of communications and pictures, energies and masses, which are brought into being by the activities of the thetan versus the physical universe or other thetans. The mind is a communication and control system between the thetan and his environment. (FOT, p. 56)...MORE

the whole sum of past by-passed charge. (HCOB 19 Aug 63)

The military type of organization form whereby there is a definite ascending and descending chain of command. Orders pass from top management down the line of command and compliances and data pass on up without by-passing the chain of command. (Modern Management Defined (c) L. Ron Hubbard, 1976)

That basic outness found which will lead to a recovery of stats. (HCO PL 13 Oct 70 II)

Undergo processing. (Science of Survival, p.75)

a problem is postulate-counter-postulate, terminal-counter-terminal, force-counter-force. It’s one thing versus another thing. You’ve got two forces or two ideas which are interlocked of comparable magnitude and the thing stops right there. All right, now with these two things one stuck against the other you get a sort of a timelessness, it floats in time. (SH Spec 82, 6111C21) 2 . a problem is a postulate-counter-postulate resulting in indecision. That is the first manifestation of problems, and the first consequence of a problem is indecision. (SH Spec 27, 6107C11) 3 . a multiple confusion. (SH Spec 26X, 6107C03) 4 . an intention counter-intention that worries the preclear. (HCOB 23 Feb 61) 5 . a problem is the conflict arising from two opposing intentions. A present time problem is one that exists in present time, in a real universe. (HCOB 3 Jul 59) 6 . something which is persisting, the as-is-ness of which cannot be attained easily. (PRO 16, 5408CM20)

l. random effort. (Scn 0-8, p. 75) 2. energy with some direction. (PDC 56) 3. force of course is made up of time, matter, energy, flows, particles, masses, solids, liquids, gasses, space and locations. (HCOB 16 Jun 70)

A condition is an operating state. (SH Spec 62, 6505C25)

2. a colloquial name for the reactive mind. This is what the procedures of Scn are devoted to disposing of, for it is only a burden to an individual and he is much better off without it. (Scn AD)...more

5. emotion could be called the energy manifestation of affinity. As used in Dn, emotion could be called the index of the state of being. In the English language, “emotional” is often considered synonymous with “irrational.” This would seem to assume that if one is emotional one cannot be reasonable. No more unreasonable assumption could possibly be made. (SOS, p. 48)...more

1. a mental image picture which is a recording of a time of physical pain and unconsciousness. It must by definition have impact or injury as part of its content. (HCOB 23 Apr 69) 2. a specialized kind of facsimile. This differs from other mental pictures because it contains, as part of its content, unconsciousness and physical pain. (Dn 55!, p. 12) 3. a complete recording, down to the last accurate detail, of every perception present in a moment of partial or full unconsciousness. (Scn 0-8, p. 11)...more

1. one who listens and computes; a Scn practitioner. 2. one who has been trained in the technology of Scn. An auditor applies standard technology to preclears. 3. a person who through church training becomes skilled in the successful application of Dn and Scn to his family, friends and the public to achieve the ability gained as stated on the Gradation Chart for his class of training...more

1. the feeling of love or liking for something or someone. Affinity is a phenomena of space in that it expresses the willingness to occupy the same place as the thing which is loved or liked...more

1. a person who, through Scientology processing, is finding out more about himself and life. (The Phoenix Lectures, p. 20) 2. a spiritual being who is now on the road to becoming Clear, hence preclear. (HCOB 5 Apr 69) 3. one who is discovering things about himself and who is becoming clearer. (HCO PL 21 Aug 63) Abbr. PC

1. a portion of a person's mind which works on a totally stimulus-response basis, which is not under his volitional control, and which exerts force and the power of command over his awareness, purposes, thoughts, body and actions. Stored in the reactive mind are engrams, and here we find the single source of aberrations and psychosomatic ills. (Scn 0-8, p. 11)...MORE

1. true anger is a hate hold. At exactly 1.5 on the tone scale we have a total ridge. It’s hate. When we move a little above or a little below 1.5 we get a dispersal. (5904C08) 2. anger is simply the process of trying to hold everything still. (5203CM09A)

1. harmful energy or force accumulated and stored within the reactive mind, resulting from the conflicts and unpleasant experiences that a person has had. Auditing discharges this charge so that it is no longer there to affect the individual. (Scn AD)..more

1. any one of the eight subdivisions of the dynamic principle of existence-SURVIVE. (PXL, p. 49) 2. dynamic is the ability to translate solutions into action. (HFP, p. 171) 3. the tenacity to life and vigor and persistence in survival. (DMSMH, p. 38)

The application of Scientology processes and procedures to someone by a trained auditor. (Dianetics & Scientology Technical Dictionary (C) 1975)

Abbreviation for Sea Organization. (Modern Management Technology Defined (C) 1976).

The Rehabilitation Project Force has been created by the Commodore so that redemption can occur. (FO 3434) Abbr. RPF

Abbreviation for 1. Rehabilitation Project Force. (Modern Management Technology Defined (C) 1976). The Rehabilitation Project Force has been created by the Commodore so that redemption can occur. (FO 3434)

The application of Scientology processes and procedures to someone by a trained auditor. (Dianetics & Scientology Technical Dictionary (C) 1975)

The application of Scientology processes and procedures to someone by a trained auditor. (Dianetics & Scientology Technical Dictionary (C) 1975)

Captain, U.S. armed forces rank. Retired.

Master of Social Work

The name of LRH's home in East Grinstead, Sussex, England. (BTB 12 Apr 72R)

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