Evaluation, priorities and recommendations for the Further Mathematics Support Programme

Psychodynamic theory remains important in academic and historical terms being the first psychological approach to gain acceptance. The aim of psychoanalysis is to produce therapeutic change by allowing the client to gain an insight into her or his emotional past.

These unresolved emotional conflicts from the past are thought to produce unconscious conflicts resulting in their symptoms. As a result of the process involved, psychoanalysis is sometimes described as an insight therapy.

39 Although its precursors can be traced back to Mesmer and hard work of Breuer, psychodynamic approaches to abnormal behaviour truly began with Sigmund Freud (1856-1939). Freud formulated the psychodynamic theory of personality based on his clinical experiences. Holmes (1998) pointed out that he initially used hypnosis to access the early experiences of his neurotic patients.

A person under hypnosis is in a state of heightened susceptibility to the suggestions of others.

Feldman (1994) described the method clearly:

You are feeling relaxed and drowsy. You are getting sleepier and sleepier. Your body is becoming limp. Now you are starting to become warm, at ease, more comfortable.

Your eyelids are feeling heavier and heavier. Your eyes are closing; you can‟t keep them open anymore. You are totally relaxed. Now, as you listen to my voice, do exactly as I say. Place your hands above your head. You will find they are getting heavier and heavier- so heavy you can barely keep them up. In fact, although you are straining as hard as you will, yet you will be unable to hold them up again (p.144).

For Feldman, an observer watching the above scene would notice a curious phenomenon occurring: many of the people listening to the voice would, one by one, drop their arms to their sides, as if they were holding heavy lead weights. The reason for this strange behaviour is that the people have been hypnotized.

In some respects, it appears that a person in a hypnotic trance is asleep. Other aspects of behaviour contradict this appearance of sleep given that the person is attentive to the hypnotist‟s suggestions and carries out suggestions that may be bizarre or silly.

At the same time, Feldman (1994) noted that people do not lose all will of their own when hypnotized. For him, they will not perform antisocial behaviours and will not carry out

self-40 destructive acts. He went on to say that people will not reveal hidden truths about themselves and that they are capable of lying. Moreover, people cannot be hypnotized against their will.

Lynn, Weeks, Neufeld, Zivney, Brentar and Weiss (1991); Sabourine, Cutcomb, Crawford and Pribram (1990) discovered, there are wide variations in people‟s susceptibility to hypnosis. For them about 5 to 20 per cent of the population cannot be hypnotized at all while some 15 per cent of the population are very easily hypnotized. Most people fall in between.

They went on to say that the ease with which a person is hypnotized is related to a number of other characteristics. Many scholars noted that people who are easily hypnotized are also easily absorbed while reading books or listening to music, becoming unaware of what is happening around them, and they often spend an unusual amount of time in happy daydreaming (Hilgard, (1974); Lynn & Rhue, 1985); Lynn & Snodgrass, (1987); Crawford, (1982). They concluded that such people showed a high ability to concentrate and to become completely absorbed in what they are doing.

It is very much likely that the investigators into the past life of those who claimed that they had once lived and reincarnated made use of this method to elicit information from their clients. Fraud must be regarded as a strong possibility, especially in hypnotic regressions and in cases where the data are presented by proponents of reincarnation. It is not necessary to allege conscious bad intent in every instance, for there may be a strong element of subconscious motivation when proponents of reincarnation are dealing with the possibility of rebirth. And, it should be remembered, most if not all reincarnation researchers and hypnotherapists make their living through their research and practice, a fact which can affect their findings whether consciously or not.

41 2.2.2 Cell Theory

The cell theory, one of the most general and basic concepts in biology, is formulated from the findings and ideas of several scientists. In 1839, the German zoologist, Theodor Schwan, and the botanist, Matthias Schleiden, who were both working on their own, stated clearly that the bodies of all animals and plants are composed of cells and the products of cells. Cells were then commonly described as “units of life” and “the building-blocks from which living organisms are made”. Biologists also realized that cells are not only the structural but also functional units of living organism. In 1885, another German biologist, Rodolf Virchow (cited by Ramalingam, 2005), stated that “all cells come from cells” (p. 214).

In the present century, studies connected with viruses and bacteria opened up the field of molecular biology. Scientists have now shown that information about the cells‟ „make up‟ is in the nucleic acids (deoxyribonucleic acid, DNA, and ribonucleic acid, RNA) of a cell. This information is passed on from one generation to the next when the cell or organism reproduces. Ramalingam (2005) summarized the cell theory thus:

- all living organisms are composed of one or more cells;

- the cell is the structural and functional unit of all living organism: the basic organizational unit of life;

- all existing cells come from the reproduction of pre-existing cells;

- a cell contains information for its structure and functional development is passed down from parent to offspring cells.

Some people hold that certain memories or characteristics of ancestry may be stored in our chromosomes and DNA structure; each person is a combination of all the ancestors who have preceded him. In some ways, such a theory seems reasonable and scientific, as the basic

42 mechanism (the genetic structure) is known. But science has yet to document such link in any way that would explain past-life recall.