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Hypnosis has existed for as long as there have been human beings. This is because the hypnotic state is completely natural; something that can be achieved by everyone. Many ancient cultures have records indicating activity that might be described as hypnosis. Babylonians, Greeks, Egyptians, Druids, Vikings, Indian Yogis, Dervishes & Hindu Priests; cultures using chants, drumming and dance rituals to change or alter the state of consciousness. These were often linked to religion or healing or both.
The earliest written records can be found in texts like the Ebers Papyrus; an Egyptian medical text dating around 1550BC. This scroll contains 700 ‘magical’ formulas designed to cure afflictions ranging from crocodile bites to toenail pain. It also includes a surprisingly accurate description of the circulatory system, noting the existence of blood vessels throughout the body and the heart's function as centre of the blood supply. It contains a description of a physician placing hands on the heads of a patient and, claiming superhuman therapeutic powers, gave forth with strange remedial utterances which would lead to cures. The Egyptians are also thought to have originated ‘sleep temples’ in which priests gave similar treatments through the use of suggestion.
Hypocrites discussed the phenomenon saying “the affliction suffered by the body, the soul sees quite well with the eyes shut”. Among the Romans, Aesculapius often threw his patients into a “deep sleep” and allayed pain by stroking the patient with his hand.
In 2600BC the father of Chinese medicine, Wong Tai wrote about techniques that involved incantations and the passing of hands. Other accounts can be found in the Bible, the Talmud (a book of Jewish writings) and the Hindu Vedas, written about 1500BC.
The advent of Christianity led to a decline in the use of hypnosis because it was considered witchcraft. In the Religious Aspects of Hypnosis (1962) there are descriptions of how Jesus used hypnosis in performing many of his miracles. Modern hypnosis started in the late 18th Century. A religious man called Father Gassner believed that patients who were ill were possessed by the devil. He performed a form of stage hypnosis. He told patients that when they were touched by his gold crucifix they would fall to the floor where they should await his instructions. They were told to “die” and an observer physician felt no pulse, heard no heart beat and pronounced the person dead. The demons were ordered to depart and then the patient revived. In the early 1770s this was observed by Mesmer.
Franz Anton Mesmer, (1734-1815), an Austrian physician, developed a theory called "animal magnetism," later named “mesmerism”. He believed that disease developed when invisible magnetic fluids were cut off or improperly distributed due to the gravitational attraction of the planets. Mesmer believed that this mysterious fluid penetrates all bodies. This fluid allows one person to have a powerful, "magnetic" influence over another person. In 1775 he revised his theory of “animal gravitation” to one of “animal magnetism”.
Mesmer used a tub filled with water and iron fillings, protruding from which were larger iron rods. He suggested to patients that as he touched them with his magnetic rod they would become magnetised and would eventually go into a state of “crisis” from which they would emerge cured. Many patients claimed that this treatment cured them.
He went to Paris to lecture and practice in 1778. His sessions, or séances, in which he supposedly "magnetised" patients, created a sensation. But the medical profession considered him a fraud. A French commission was formed to study the claims of Mesmer and his followers. It reported that the magnetic fluids did not exist. It explained the cures as a product of the patient’s imagination. However, some of his patients and students continued to experiment with some of his methods and found that magnets and fluids were unnecessary.
Marquis de Puysegur, a follower of Mesmer, discovered a form of deep trance he called ‘somnambulism’. He forgot to mention the “crisis” when working with a patient and discovered a quiet, relaxed state.
In the mid-nineteenth century a Scottish doctor, James Braid, pointed out that hypnosis was different to sleep and that hypnotism was a physiological response in the subject, not magical powers. He proceeded with experiments that disapproved the notion that the ability to induce hypnosis was connected with the magical passage of a fluid or other influence by the practitioner over the patient. He had a psychological view that hypnosis is a kind of ‘nervous sleep’ induced by fatigue resulting from the intense concentration necessary for staring fixedly at a bright, inanimate object. He realised later that it was not ‘sleep’, but a concentration of the mind’. Perhaps Braid’s most valuable contribution was his attempt to define hypnotism as a phenomenon that could be scientifically studied. Introduced the term hypnosis in his book Neurypnology in 1843. He later tried to re-name it ‘monoideism’, but ‘hypnosis’ already had strong roots in language. He was interested in the therapeutic possibilities reporting successes with paralysis, rheumatism and aphasia. He was also interested in aspects of panic and anxiety.
During this same period James Esdaile, a Scottish Doctor working in India, began to use hypnotism as an anaesthetic in major surgery, including leg amputations. He performed about 200 operations with the aid of hypnosis. As a result of his work the BMA reported in 1891, “as a therapeutic agent hypnotism is frequently effective in relieving pain, procuring sleep and alleviating many functional ailments”.
John Elliotson, English physician who advocated the use of hypnosis in therapy and who in 1849 founded a mesmeric hospital. He was one of the first teachers in London to emphasise clinical lecturing and invented the stethoscope. Performed 1,834 operations using hypnotic trance. Published first journal dealing with hypnosis - ‘Zoist’. He was also an expert in child hypnosis.
Jean Martin Charcot, a French neurologist performed landmark experiments in the late 1800s. He found that hypnosis relieved many nervous conditions. His clinic for nervous disorders achieved a widespread reputation among scientists of the time, including the French psychologist Alfred Binet and the Austrian physician Sigmund Freud.
Also in the late 1800's, the French physicians Hippolyte Bernheim and Ambroise Auguste Liebeault explored the role of suggestibility in hypnosis. These two scientists used hypnosis to treat more than 12,000 patients. Independently they wrote that hypnosis involved no physiological processes, but was a combination of psychologically medicated responses to suggestions. Liebeault “the father of modern hypnotism”, broadened the scope of hypnosis beyond pain control. He was adept at rapid hypnosis and he realised that a deep trance was not necessary, and he rarely spent more than fifteen minutes with his patients. He suggested away symptoms, “all phenomena in hypnosis are subjective in origin”.
At this time a range of induction techniques were introduced. Liebeault was merely using the word "sleep" with a hand pass, Charcot on the other hand was violently ringing gongs and flashing drums lights. The Germans, Weinhold and Heidenhain, preferred the ticking of a watch, and Berger was using warm plates of metal. The idea of magnetism and magnetic processes had not yet completely worn off yet. Despite Liebeault's explanation of the phenomena as subjective, Piteres maintained that certain portions of the body were particularly sensitive to stimulation of the skin, and these so- called hypnotic zones which were described by him existed sometimes on one side of the body and other times on both. Moll has stated that he himself had seen many persons who were hypnotised only when their foreheads were touched. Purkinje and Spitt stated that touches on the forehead induced a sleepy state in many persons. Cradle rocking used to induce children was well known, and Eisenhart has mentioned stroking of the forehead as an excellent induction technique for children. Hirt often used electricity to induce hypnosis, and Sperling, a contemporary of Bramwell's and Moll's, described the hypnotic trances of Dervishes which he had seen in Constantinople (now Istanbul).
Freud was especially interested in the work of Charcot and Bernheim. He used hypnotised people in his early studies of the unconscious state. He used it to help neurotics recall disturbing events that they had apparently forgotten. As he began to develop his system of psychoanalysis, theoretical considerations, as well as the difficulty he encountered hypnotising some patients led Freud to discarding hypnosis in favour of free association. However, he continued to view hypnosis as an important research phenomenon. Late in his life, Freud modified his once negative views on hypnotism.
Josef Breuer, Austrian physician and physiologist who was acknowledged by Sigmund Freud and others as the principal forerunner of psychoanalysis. Breuer found, in 1880, that he had relieved symptoms of hysteria in a patient, (called Anna O. in his case study), Bertha Pappenheim, after he had induced her to recall unpleasant past experiences under hypnosis. He cured a whole range of her problems by revealing more and more of her previous experiences. One was that she was unable to drink water; when she was regressed to the cause it was revealed that, at home, a dog had been given water from a glass; when she came out of hypnosis she immediately asked for and drank a glass of water.
In the 1880s, Pierre Janet identified the connection between academic psychology and the clinical treatment of mental illness. He stressed psychological factors in hypnosis and contributed to the modern concept of mental and emotional disorders involving anxiety, phobias and other abnormal behaviour. In 1891, the BMA reported favourably on the use of hypnosis in the field of medicine.
Various American scientists have made important advances in the study of hypnotism during the 1900's. Morton Prince showed that hypnotised people can maintain several mental activities at the same time. Clark L. Hull demonstrated that hypnosis is a form of heightened suggestibility.
Milton H. Erickson developed new strategies of hypnotism by combining clinical and research techniques. He was a master of indirect hypnosis; he was able to take someone into a trance without mentioning the word hypnosis.
Harold Crasilneck showed that hypnotic strategies can be effective with stroke patients. Herbert Spiegel described the natural hypnotic talents of patients. The studies of Ernest and Josephine Hilgard helped increase understanding of pain mechanisms in the body.
Hypnotism became widely used by physicians and psychologists during World War I and World War II. Hypnosis was used to treat battle fatigue and mental disorders resulting from war. After the wars, scientists found additional uses of hypnotism in clinical treatment.
In the 1950s both BMA and AMA issued statements supporting hypnosis.
Hypnotism Act - 1952 - to protect the public from dangerous and pornographic hypnotists and required all shows to obtain a licence from a Magistrates Court or the local council. (Some parts of the World outlaw stage hypnosis completely.) In 1955 BMA endorsed the teaching of hypnosis in all medical schools.
In 1958 the British Hypnosis Association was founded. Now called the BHA Hypnotherapy Association.
In the 1970s police began experimenting with hypnosis as a means of interviewing witnesses to certain crimes. Hypnosis is reported to be particularly effective in helping witnesses give descriptions of criminals, relate the details of violent sexual attacks, and recall the scenarios immediately preceding certain accidents.
In 1973, the Hypnotherapy Registry started. Later called the National Council for Hypnotherapy started.
In 1993, the New Scientist published results of largest survey ever recorded on stopping smoking methods. Hypnosis streets ahead of anything else.
Presently, various researchers have put forth differing theories of what hypnosis is and how it could be understood, but their is currently no generally accepted explanatory theory for the phenomenon. It is, however, a relaxing and safe state capable of achieving huge positive changes for individuals. |
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Hypnosis for calmness and relaxation, confidence and competence. |
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History of hypnosis |