Health Center offers hypnosis as alternative form of therapy
By Mark Gill
Assistant Feature Editor
"Most people don't say. 'I'm coughing, send me to a shrink.’ " said Ray Lederman. a doctor of osteopathic medicine at the Student Health Center.
But when he was in private practice as a general practitioner, he found that about 75 percent of his patients came in with problems that were presented as physical, but stemmed from emotional disorders.
“A lot of people say. 'It's not all in my head. I’m feeling pain.' " Lederman said. “And there are physical reasons for pain, yet it’s caused bv emotional problems. Instead of prescribing Valium, I decided to study psychosom tic illness.
“Some hypnotists have standard suggestions for certain symptoms, but I can't work that way.”
He described hypnosis as a deep state of relaxation where a patient is able to uncritically accept ideas. However, Lederman said he first gets to know the patient w'ell and makes only suggestions that are in keeping with that patient’s belief system.
“If I were to tell you that you should dye your hair green and wear eye makeup and you weren't particu-
larly into that, it (hypnosis) wouldn't work." he said.
“Most people have real misconceptions of hypnosis. They think that they will not recall anything and will be under complete control of the hypnotist."
The kind of hypnotism he practices, though, merely gives the patient a deep feeling of relaxation. He believes that Hollywood's influence has permanently altered the popular conception of hypnotists.
People suffering from stress-related illness, including tension headaches, are his most frequent patients because they are most amenable to hypnosis.
“Most people think that stress is out there somewhere and that they have no power or control over their lives.” However, much scientific evidence suggests otherwise.
“It's a proven fact now that people can lower their pulse rate and blood pressure,” Lederman said. “In the '60s, a lot of my friends learned how' to so they didn't have to go to war. They would go in for their physicals and fail, and then go out," and continue living safely.
Part of Lederman’s work involves
educating people as to how stress is perceived and translated in the mind into physiological symptoms.
Scientists have found that the autonomic nerves control heart rate, breathing, blood pressure and sweat gland and digestive system activity.
“The more we know, the more we see that stress is related to illness." he said. "We know that stress lowers resistance to disease — we can prove that."
For example, a person who encounters stress is likely to maintain irregular eating and sleeping habits which could lead to a cold or something much more severe, especially cancer. Recent research indicates that in a large number of cancer cases, the victim has been through a major traumatic episode within six months of developing symptoms.
Doctors in Fort Worth. Texas, have found that having cancer patients practice guided imagery—-positive thinking in essence — is effective. “That’s why some people respond to some of the quackish kinds of medical technology. If they firmly believe it w’ill work, they are at a great advantage.
“But it’s too bad that (many lae-trile patients in Mexico) are being
denied other forms of proven medical regimens,” he said.
Lederman became interested in psychosomatic illness while working as a general practitioner in Long Beach. “When you have to pay for an office visit, you don't come in until you need to be seen,” he said. As a private practitioner, he felt the work involved more patching up than preventative medicine.
“By necessity. I wras cutting corners in private practice. But here (at the Student Health Center) you can see somebody for 25 minutes to talk about their smoking problem, and you can see them as many times as you like.”
A typical day involves seeing one hypnosis jiatient and many walk-in patients afflicted with everything from sore toes to the flu.
“I like it. If it were in a different setting, it would probably drive me nuts. But I get to spend a lot of time w'ith patients and educate them," he said. “It affords me the opportunity to practice good medicine. The job I am doing here is much better than the job I was doing in private practice.”
(Continued on page 11)
By Yolanda Austin
Overenthusiastic fans at the Trojan/Cal game Saturday made an otherwise pleasant event a painful memory for one band member who was struck twice and injured by debris thrown as the band performed on the Cal side of Memorial Stadium.
Laura Lin, a trombone player, suffered a concussion after what she said was a frozen tomato struck her helmet. cracking a three-inch hole
in the hard plastic.
No other band members were seriously injured, but some players received bruises when hit by fruit while standing in front of the Cal student section, said Scott Steel, university band manager.
“Trouble was in the air," Lin said, w'hen the band arrived at the field and spotted people waiting for them with large sacks of fruit. The band lined up on the Cal side to perform at halftime, and they were
Food staff opposes management policies
(sMS^ trojan
Volume XCI Number 49 University of Southern California Tuesday, November 10, 1981
By Alan Grossman
Staff Writer
Although the USC Workers* Committee meeting Friday afternoon failed to produce a clear-cut position for the group to present to Guy Hubbard, director of Auxiliary Services, the committee head hopes to resolve the matter soon.
Alex Rivera, the group's leader, said he will tell Hubbard of the workers’ unfavorable initial reaction to the new policy, which would restrict workers to eat in one cafeteria and be served a preselected food for each meal, and would ask him to attend the next Workers' Committee meeting and help clear up the matter.
Rivera said he believed if Hubbard attended the next session and explained the guidelines to the workers along with the reasons for their adoption, his group might accept the plan. Rivera attributed this to “the amount of respect the workers have for Hubbard.”
As the plan is currently constructed, all employee meals will come from the Grill, and must be eaten in the Grill area between the hours of 7:30 a.m. and 6:30 p.m. Student employees who work between three and eight hours will receive one meal, as will employees who work up to six hours a day. Those full-time employees who work over six hours a day will receive two meals, and all meals will be recorded on timecards.
Over 60 employees from the various food services attended the meeting, which was supposed to define the employee position so that Hubbard. Neil Hirschfield, director of USC Food Services, and Mark Archer, general manager of the Commons Restaurant, would have something concrete to incorporate into a revised version of the policy.
However, many workers voiced complaints about the policy, and some called for a return to the old rules which allowed employees to eat a
Berkeley fans pelt Trojan band
Musician injured by thrown debris
pelted with fruit and rotten eggs.
Lin was hit, but thought she was fine because she only “blacked-out for a couple of seconds.” She continued to perform and later noticed the crack in her helmet, w'hich made her think, “The helmet saved my life.”
Lin, however, was hit a second time at the post-game performance and was taken to the emergency room of St. Francis Medical Center in San Francisco where tests showed she had a concussion. “I was just unlucky,” she said.
The players hit were just random targets, according to Mike Ednev, a university drum major, since fans wrere just throwing for the sport of it.
The Cal fans who threw fruit were not concerned about hitting their own band members, even though many were still on the field. Edney said.
After the game, persons with rakes and garbage bags cleaned up the mess. Steel said he felt the clean-up suggested that Cal was anticipating the problem and prepared for it. but suggested that the school make greater efforts to deter the problem.
“This sort of thing is frustrating,” Steel said, "because it happens every two years at Cal football games.”
Berkeley police, spirit groups and representatives from the band and athletic departments of both schools have met in previous years in an attempt to control the problem, but have not been able to do so.
This activity is not limited to university games against Cal. (Continued on page 13)
Staff photo by Andrew Innerarity
Show-off—There's a non-conformist in every crowd, even at the chemistry building.
portion of whatever they prepared, or go to any of the serving areas and eat there.
Hirschfield has said the USC Food Services budget could not support the practice any longer, and added that all hotels and restaurants in the Los Angeles area practice similar plans.
Some w'orkers expressed the view that employee meals were not putting as large a dent into the budget as were new restaurant machinery or the seemingly increased amount of management personnel. Also, the dietary habits of management personnel on their visits to the Commons Restaurant were questioned.
According to Raymond Santoro, a student worker and a senior majoring in Cinema/Television, Archer had (Continued on page 9)