Photographic Studies in Hypnosis, Abnormal Psychology

About

Depiction of a subject under hypnosis enduring various experiments in a clinical setting. From the Photographic Studies in Hypnosis series.

This silent film shows a woman being hypnotized and includes both pre and post hypnosis scenes. The hypnotist demonstrates how a patient’s mind can be manipulated as he pinpricks and burns his patient with controlled and suggestive reactions. This unrehearsed session of hypnosis features two students whom are given false memories. The pair are then tested about their memories and are given some basic psychological tests to see the effects of the hypnosis. (University of Oregon Library catalog)

Lester F. Beck was an Associate Professor of Psychology as well as a Secretary Treasurer at the University of Oregon. He was responsible for the research and planning that resulted in production of the widely accepted E.C. Brown Trust film called “Human Growth”. Brown University awarded its first ever Ph.D. degree in psychology in 1933 to Lester F. Beck, whose topic was “Manual Skills and the Measurement of Handedness.” Here is a link to his IMDB page http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1393104/. (from 16mmlostandfound website)

Detailed information on film: https://16mmlostandfound.wordpress.com/2012/03/07/photographic-studies-in-hypnosis-abnormal-psychology-1938/ (accessed 2023-07-07).

Shotlist (from Prelinger Archives legacy database):

MS woman in a chair closing her eyes, strange rapid blinking, beginning to fall asleep in the early stages of being hypnotized.

CU woman falling asleep sitting upright. Hand enters frame as if to shake her. Intertitle: “Are you asleep?” Woman shakes her head no. Intertitle: “Youa re now passing into a deep, profound sleep.” Woman falls asleep her head turning off to one side. Intertitle: “Going deeply asleep.”

Intertitle: “I am going to pull your eyelids apart.” CU woman in profile with two hands entering the frame from the left pulling her eyelids apart.

Intertitle: “Your right are is becoming rigid. Stiff and rigid at your side.” MS woman with stiff and rigid arms and the hypnotists arms entering the frame demonstrating this phenomenon in the woman lifting her arms and bending her fingers.

Intertitle: “I am going to prick your hands with a pin.” MS of woman asleep having her hands pricked by the hypnotist. Her hands twitch with each prick but she remains asleep in a state of hypnosis.

Intertitle: “Your right hand is now insensitive.” MS woman having her right hand pricked. Her hand now impervious to the prick while her left hand remains reactive.

Intertitle: “I am going to touch your arm with a red-hot instrument.” MS woman wincing in pain as her right arm is burned by the instrument. She appears to mutter something under her breath but remains asleep. She pulls her arm away

Archive

Internet Archive, in Prelinger Archives

Licence or status

The Internet Archive states none for this item.

Rights statement

Public domain.

Credit

Lester F. Beck

Who can watch

The archive gives no rating. Invisible Network shows it to Tweens profiles and older, judged from its collection and subjects. How films are placed