Hypnosis has probably been used
therapeutically for far longer than is historically documented. There are
references to a utilisation of the trance state in ancient literature,
mythology and scriptural writings of many cultures. Ancient methods of
divination such as the tarot, and the I-ching are early forms of hypnotic
induction. Magic, Voodoo, shamanism, faith healing and yoga all share
characteristics with hypnosis. There is evidence to show that the ancient
Egyptians and Greeks would pray, fast and dream in dream incubation centres. However, to define it more concisely as the
utilization of an altered state of awareness, written history can be traced
back to the Swiss physician Philippus Aurealus Paracelcus born in 1493 at
Einsieden. His real name was Theophratus Bombastus von Hohenheim and he
was educated in his youth by his father, who was also a physician. The ancient
Greek and Romans believed that disease was caused by an imbalance of body
humours (or fluids), but Paracelcus believed that disease had various external
causes and he treated them with both herbs and drugs made from minerals that
had been detoxified. He believed in spiritual causes of disease and a
direct influence of heavenly bodies and magnetic fields on all living
beings. His theory was that the human body contained a magnetic fluid and
if the flow of this fluid was blocked, disease would result from the blockage.
Just as the moon affects the tide, it was his belief that the movement of the
planets could influence the balance of this fluid and therefore the health of
an animal or human.
‘Mesmerised’
This theory of ‘animal magnetism’ (a magnetic force
different from physical magnetism) was developed further in the sixteenth
century by Van Helmont and in the seventeenth century by Father Maximilian
Hell, a Jesuit priest who used it to produce conscious changes.
The famous Austrian, Franz Anton Mesmer (1734-1815) was greatly influenced by Paracelcus’s
magnetic theories on healing. When qualifying in medicine at the age of
thirty-two he wrote a dissertation on the influence of heavenly bodies on human
health, (‘animal gravity’). When he was forty years old he began to
experiment in healing using ‘animal magnetism’ and he claimed to have the
ability to ‘magnetise’ many
substances, for example paper and glass. He also found that stroking a
magnet over an afflicted area of a patients body sometimes resulted in
spasmodic muscular contractions and collapse. This was especially true of
‘hysteric’ patients with whom he had successful healing results.
Subsequently practicing in Paris his popular
theatrical demonstrations attracted a wide audience. He created a
magnetic ‘baquet’ in order to treat several people at a time. This was an
oak tub about five feet in diameter and one foot in depth. Various
bottles were arranged in concentric circles in the bottom of the tub, which was
filled with water, iron filings and powdered glass. Patients would hold
iron rods, bent at right angles that emerged through holes in the tubs lid, and
were encouraged to hold hands to create a circuit for the magnetic energy to
flow. He later came to believe that the magnetism flowed from his hands
creating a distinction between organic magnetism (energy from a magnet) and
animal magnetism (energy from an individual). With grand and strange
theatrical procedures like this Mesmer was unwittingly hypnotising his
patients. However, the medical community wanted to discredit Mesmers work and a
doctor D’Elsan was struck off the register for his support of Mesmers work.
Many of the rumours discrediting
‘Mesmerism’ still exist today providing suspicion against modern
hypnotism. A number of scientists were commissioned to investigate Mesmer
and although they concluded that patients were successfully cured, they
reported that the cures were all in the imagination of the patient and Mesmer
was jailed. However, he later set up a clinic, a teaching establishment and a
register of qualified members (taught in his methods) and called it The Society
of Honour. Mesmer continued practicing animal magnetism into his eighties
but he died relatively poor, near lake Constance, where he was born.
Hypnotic Anaesthesia
The other magnetists experienced success in animal
magnestism, organic magnetism, and in the power of the mind in healing.
One of them, the Marquis de Puysegur discovered the deepest state of hypnotic
trance, which he called ‘induced somnambulism’. Under this induced trance
patients could prescribe their own treatment.
In 1841 and 1856 the Vatican condemned the practice of
inducing somnambulism as a means of ‘divination’. This general
disapproval, coupled with the belief that hypnosis deprives a subject of his
free will, (popularized by stories, plays and later cinema) still exists today
to a certain extent. However despite widespread objection to ‘induced
somnambulism’ or ‘mesmerism’ a Scottish surgeon, Dr James Esdaile (1808-1859)
used it to successfully induce anesthesia in over three hundred operations. He
went to India in 1845 and although he had great success following Mesmer’s
techniques he did not realise he was working with the power of
suggestion. It could take him up to an hour and a half to induce
somnambulism but he was able to reduce the usual surgery mortality rate of that
era from fifty per cent to eight percent and his patients also experienced
swift recoveries. However, when he returned to England to
enthusiastically share his discoveries, he was ridiculed by the medical
profession and had his hospital closed down.
Pocket Watch
James Braid, also Scottish, lived around the same time
as Esdaile (1795-1860) and became interested in Mesmerism when watching a
dramatic stage demonstration by LaFontaine in November 1841. Braid soon
began lecturing and demonstrating himself and encouraged open discussion and
criticism. He was the first person to find that a subject could be mesmerised without the use of magnets. His induction technique
(now known as ‘Braidism’) was through fixation, ie: watching the eyes or a
pocket watch. He angered the Mesmerists because he did not share their
belief that Mesmerists possessed a special power that enabled them to flow magnetism through their hands. In 1843 he renamed mesmerism,
‘hypnosis’ a word that was previously used by French researchers and taken from
the Greek God of sleep, Hypnos. He later realised that the state is very
different from sleep and tried to rename it ‘Monoideism’ but the name
stuck. Braid first researched the possibility that under hypnosis the
neural system was linked to certain cures by suggestions. However he later
believed that hypnosis was a more mental phenomenon. Although Braid wrote an
influential book ‘Neurypnology’, he did not found a school, so when he died his
influence decreased and the study of hypnosis was more focused in Nancy,
France.
Suggestions
The Nancy School of Hypnosis placed less emphasis on
hypnotic ritual and more on suggestion as a useful psychological process.
Liebeault and Bernheim were two of the most prominent doctors of this school
(Liebeault was one of the founders) and their theories were based on ideomotor
action. This is where the hypnotist’s suggestions automatically produce
responses without the participation of the subject. Bernheim, a
neurologist, (1837 – 1919) was particularly interested in Braids discoveries
and Bernheims method, (where a suggestion results in a physical response,) was
called an ‘ideodynamic’ response. A simple example of this would be;
thinking of something embarrassing causes somebody to blush.
These ideas replaced both Braids neural theories and
what he called ‘monoideism’, which was the belief that un-conflicted ideas lead
to action.
Charcot (1825 – 1893) believed that the best hypnotic
subjects were ‘hysterics’ and that hypnosis was an expression of
hysteria. Hysteria is a physical display of a psychological problem, now
known as conversion disorder. However, this theory and his opinion that
hysteria was a mental illness were found to be incorrect by the end of the
nineteenth century.
Freud and Jung
Sigmund Freud studied under Charcot and was one of
those who abandoned Charcots neurological theories in favour of the Nancy Schools focus on suggestion. Initially Freud had great
enthusiasm for hypnosis when he found that repressed memories could be
remembered in a way that was useful and beneficial for the patient. However,
Freud was reportedly a bad hypnotist possibly due to a speech impediment, but
also because he used only a simple authoritarian style of induction. In
1896 he rejected hypnosis believing it to be time consuming and likely to
encourage an unhealthy and amorous dependence of the client upon the therapist,
(a situation termed ‘transference’). He subsequently focused on
psychoanalytical theory and his rejection of hypnosis was another blow to the
credibility of hypnosis as a therapy. Adding to this discredit was
another famous psychiatrist, Carl Jung (1875 – 1961) who studied under
Freud. He also abandoned his earliest interest in hypnosis because he
didn’t want to impose his will on his patients. This is a reservation
related to the authoritarian style of hypnosis used by himself and Freud.
However, in America in 1933, Clark Hull (1884 – 1952)
published a scientific discussion of the subject titled ‘Hypnosis and
Suggestibility; An Experimental Approach’, and although somewhat out dated this
is still considered a classic as it paved the way for a more ready acceptance
of hypnosis into the medical profession. The British Medical Society recognised hypnosis as an authorised medical procedure in 1955, and in 1958 the American
Medical Association and the American Psychological Association did the same.
Ericksonian Hypnosis
Milton Erickson (1902 – 1980) was originally a student
of Clark Hull at an ongoing seminar at the university of Wisconsin but later
disagreed with his measurable and standardised procedures. Hulls work has been historically
important yet Erickson was one of the most important influences on hypnosis, as
we know it today.
During his teenage years he became paralysed with polio that a doctor predicted would be
fatal. He reacted to the prognosis with annoyance and determination and
battled against the disease using self-hypnosis, which he taught to
himself. Although he never regained full health, and spent periods of his
life in a wheel chair, he studied degrees in medicine and psychology and became
a psychiatrist. He was founding president of the American Society for
Clinical Hypnosis. Patients travelled thousands of miles to his private
practice in Phoenix, Arizona. As he became famous more and more of his
time was used lecturing and teaching hypnotherapy and psychotherapy.
Rejecting the authoritarian approach and not a believer in fixed induction
routines his technique was relaxed and informal, suggestions often delivered
wrapped among stories, jokes, analogies and metaphors. He would tailor
his approach to each individual client and this flexibility and open mindedness
was in contrast to previous hypnotists, who had preferred to assert an amount
of authority and mystery to their practice. Erickson was also holistic,
retaining an awareness of the many factors that may be influencing a client at
the time of treatment. His entirely new methods instigated a debate over
which type of hypnotherapy was more effective (authoritarian or Ericksonian)
and even the difference between hypnosis and hypnotherapy. It is now
generally accepted that hypnosis is the practice of inducing the naturally
occurring trance state while hypnotherapy is the utilisation of this state for therapeutic benefit.
Modern Hypnotherapy
Erickson died in 1980, but Ericksonian hypnosis has
been the starting point for many modern methods of treatment that deliberately
blur the distinction between hypnosis and other therapy, such as Jay Hayley’s
strategic model of therapy, the MRI Interactional model, the Erickson-Rosso hypnotic
theories and NLP (Neurolinguistic Programming). The modern approach to
hypnotherapy is often based upon the theory that we are constantly in a state
of natural hypnosis. The job of the hypnotherapist is to use hypnotic
suggestions to alter any undesirable elements of a clients current natural
trance state, thereby helping the client to create an improved reality for them
selves.
