PSYCHIC BLINDNESS

psychic blindness: translation

   The term psychic blindness is indebted to the Greek noun psuchè (life breath, spirit, soul, mind). It was used by the French internist Hippolyte Bernheim (1840-1919) to denote a perceptual response that may occur during hypnosis, after the hypnotized subject has been given the suggestion 'not to see'. This response typically involves the disappearance from sight ofthe external environment, in favour of darkness or a formless mist. As Bernheim asserts, "Psychic blindness is the blindness which comes through imagination. It is due to the destruction of the image through psychical activity." The expression psychic blindness is also used as a synonym for a neurological condition called *mindblindness (i.e. visual agnosia).

   References

   Bernheim, H. (1888). De la suggestion et de ses applications à la thérapeutique. Deuxième édition. Paris: Octave Doin.