We’ve all seen hypnotists performing and have been amazed and astonished by what they can make others do. Hypnotism is now widely regarded as an entertainment form and it seems strange to think that it was developed by physicians to assist the healing processes. Here is a brief history.

Hypnosis is defined as the introduction of a state on consciousness in which a person loses the power of voluntary action and is highly responsive to suggestion or direction.

Various forms of hypnotism have been practiced for centuries, and Western scientists first became involved in hypnosis around 1770. Some of the more notable Western practitioners include: -

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His belief was that there was a magnetic “fluid” within the universe which influenced the health of the human body. He experimented with magnets to influence this field and assist the healing process. Successes in this area led him to conclude by around 1774 that the same effect could be created by passing his hands, at a distance, in front of the subject’s body and using some sort of invisible energy (animal magnetism) which came from his body. Ten years later, at the request of the French King Louis XVI, Mesmer’s theories were scrutinised by a series of French scientific committees. Despite accepting that the results claimed by Mesmer were truthful, the committee based its findings on the working practices of one of Mesmer’s disgruntled former students and concluded that the effects of Mesmerism were most probably due to belief and imagination in the patient rather than any form of invisible energy being transmitted. Feeling discredited by the committee’s findings, Mesmer left Paris and went into exile.

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Following on from the French committee’s finding, Dugald Stewart, an influential academic of the “Scottish School of Common Sense” encouraged physicians to salvage elements of Mesmerism by dropping any supernatural theory and replacing it with a new interpretation based on the “common sense” laws of physiology and psychology. It was felt that the physical effects of the principle of imagination were far more interesting than any doubtful role played by animal magnetism. Braid revised the theory and practice of Mesmerism and developed his own method of hypnotism as a more rational and “common sense” alternative. Braid was responsible for the term hypnotism which he used to explain the state of consciousness “into which the nervous system may be thrown by artificial contrivance” which he concluded was a form of sleep. He named this phenomenon after Hypnos, the Greek god of sleep and master of dreams. The terms of “Hypnosis” and “Hypnotism” subsequently become widely adopted as part of all the major European languages.

Braid worked closely with his friend physiologist Professor William Benjamin Carpenter an early neuro-psychologist who introduced the “ideo-motor-reflex” theory of suggestion for muscular activity. Braid incorporated this into his own theory of hypnotism expanding it to cover the influence of the mind upon the body more generally and coined the term “psycho-physiology” to refer to the study of the interaction between the mind and the body.

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Braid’s work became influential throughout the Western world, and developments occurred mainly focused in France after his research was presented to the French Academy of Science by the eminent neurologist Dr. Étienne Azam. Azam’s enthusiasm for hypnotism influenced Ambroise-Auguste Liébeault whose renowned hypnotherapy clinic was discovered by Hippolyte Bernheim who subsequently became one of the two most influential figures in late 19th century hypnotism. The other figure was Jean-Martin Charcot, who was based in Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital in Paris. Charcot, believing that hysteria was the result of an inherited neurological disorder in women and used hypnosis to induce this state to study the results, argued that only this group could be hypnotised. Bernheim argued against this saying anyone could be hypnotised as it was an extension of normal psychological functioning, and that its effects were variable being primarily due to suggestion. After several decades of debate, Bernheim’s argument prevailed and Charcot’s theory of hypnosis is now viewed a little more than an historical curiosity.

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Having served as an assistant to Ambroise-Auguste Liébeault and after practicing as an hypnotherapist for several years, Coué began to develop a new orientation called “conscious autosuggestion”. This method did not emphasise “sleep” or deep relaxation but instead focused on teaching groups of clients how to use autosuggestion. Although Coué argued he was no longer using hypnosis, some of his followers still viewed this approach as a form of light self-hypnosis. Coué’s method became an internationally renowned self-help and psychotherapy technique and preceded subsequent self-hypnosis techniques and the development of cognitive therapy.

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Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, studied hypnotism with both Charcot and Bernheim. Initially an enthusiastic proponent of hypnotherapy hr began to emphasise and popularise the use of hypnotic regression as a therapeutic method. He wrote a favourable article on hypnotism and published an influential series of case studies which became the founding text of the subsequent tradition known as “hypno-analysis” or “regression hypnotherapy”. Later, however, Freud abandoned the use of hypnotism in favour of his developing methods of psychoanalysis through free association and interpretation of the unconscious.

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One of the most influential post-war hypnotherapists, he wrote several books and articles on the subject. During the 1960s, Erickson popularised a new branch of hypnotherapy (Ericksonian hypnotherapy) characterised by the absence of formal hypnotic inductions, the use of indirect suggestion, metaphor, confusion techniques and double binds. The lack of resemblance between Erickson’s methods and those of traditional hypnotism, however, have led some of his contemporaries to seriously question whether he was actually practicing hypnosis at all and the status of his approach in relation to traditional hypnotism remains in question.

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