Vittoz method

Domain II · Behavioural & cognitive · Roger Vittoz · 1911 · Lausanne

What it is

The Vittoz method ("brain control", contrôle cérébral; today "psychosensory re-education" or "therapy of the present") is a graded training of attention through the senses and simple acts. Vittoz, a Lausanne physician who had practised hypnosis and found it left patients dependent on the doctor,…

Format

• IRDC groups the work into three families: receptivity, concentration (including will) and psychosensory relaxation. VaudFamille gives the same three families.
• Format.

Who practises it, and how they are trained or regulated

• Functional ("mechanical") treatment. Training starts with acts, because controlling a movement is easier than controlling a thought (p. 40). (a) Control of acts: conscious movements, walking, sense receptions, then voluntary acts.
• Functional training is complete when the patient can change an abnormal state, control the mind and use the will. Psychical work follows if needed (p. 95).
• The Vittoz method ("brain control", contrôle cérébral; today "psychosensory re-education" or "therapy of the present") is a graded training of attention through the senses and simple acts. Vittoz, a Lausanne physician who had practised hypnosis and found it left patients dependent on the doctor, held that nervous suffering comes from weak or unstable "brain control": the faculty that balances the conscious brain…

Evidence status, as the guide reports it

• Assessment. Vittoz judged the patient's state of control by placing his hand on the forehead and reading a "vibration", which he classed as normal, torpid, over-excited or tense. The present-day evidence for this "Vittoz wave" is lacking. Do not use it as a diagnostic (see Section 4, item 1).…

Questions to explore with your client

• What drew you to it, and what are you hoping it will change?
• Is there physical contact? Was it explained beforehand, and do you feel free to say no or stop at any point?
• Does it involve any substance, plant preparation, remedy or supplement? Has your doctor or prescriber been told, especially about any medication you take?
• Does it involve intense or unusual breathing? Have you been told about the medical conditions for which that is not advised?
• Is it a group, retreat or community? How do they respond if someone wants to leave or raises a concern?
• Who runs it, and what training or registration do they hold?
• What actually happens in a session or meeting, and how often?
• What does it cost, and is there pressure to commit to more?
• How do you feel afterwards, in the hours and days that follow?
• Does it fit with, or clash with, the work we do here?

What practitioners of it watch for

• Discomfort with touch. It is working when attention stays on one point.
• Confusing (a) with (c). It is working when the client reports clear decisions more often.
• Over-ambitious steps, then failure and self-blame. It is working when kept decisions accumulate.
• Rapid deciding used to avoid weighing serious life choices. Reserve rapid deciding for everyday indecision.
• Replacing the impression with a verbal description. It is working when the impression stays vivid for longer.

When to involve someone else

• New or worsening physical symptoms, or advice to stop or change prescribed medication: involve the client's doctor or prescriber.
• Signs of coercion, isolation from family and friends, escalating costs or secrecy: discuss openly and consider safeguarding.
• A crisis or thoughts of suicide: follow your crisis protocol. In the US, call or text 988; in the UK and Ireland, Samaritans on 116 123.

Drawn automatically from the guide's own sections. Stay curious: neither endorse nor dismiss what the client values, and check anything that matters against the full guide and its sources. Not medical advice.