Showing category "History of hypnosis" (Show all posts)
In the latter half of the twentieth century, two factors contributed
to the development of what subsequently became known as the
cognitive-behavioural approach to hypnosis. 1) Cognitive and
behavioural theories of the nature of hypnosis (influenced by the
seminal theories of Sarbin[21] and Barber [22]) became increasingly influential. 2) The therapeutic practices of hypnotherapy and various forms of cognitive-behavioural therapy overlapped and influenced each other.[23] Although cognitive-beh... Continue reading ...
Milton H. Erickson,
M.D. was one of the most influential post-war hypnotherapists. He wrote
several books and journal articles on the subject. During the 1960s,
Erickson was responsible for popularizing a new branch of hypnotherapy,
which became known as Ericksonian hypnotherapy,
eventually characterized by, amongst other things, the absence of a
formal hypnotic inductions, and the use of indirect suggestion,
"metaphor" (actually they were analogies, rather than "metaphors"),
confusion techni... Continue reading ...
The next major event in the history of hypnotism came as a result of
the progress of behavioural psychology in American university research.
Clark L. Hull, an eminent American psychologist, published the first major compilation of laboratory studies on hypnosis, Hypnosis & Suggestibility
(1933), in which he conclusively proved that the state of hypnosis and
the state of sleep had nothing in common. Hull published many
quantitative empirical findings derived from experiments using hypnosis
and... Continue reading ...
Émile Coué (1857-1926) served for around two years as an assistant to Ambroise-Auguste Liébeault
in his group hypnotic at Nancy. However, after practising for several
years as a hypnotherapist employing the methods of Liébeault and
Bernheim's Nancy School, Coué gradually began to develop a new
orientation called "conscious autosuggestion."
Several years after Liébeault's death in 1904, Coué founded what became
known as the New Nancy School, a loose collaboration of practitioners
who ta... Continue reading ...
Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, subsequently studied hypnotism at Charcot's Paris school and briefly visited Bernheim's Nancy school.
Initially, Freud was an enthusiastic proponent of hypnotherapy, and
soon began to emphasise and popularise the use of hypnotic regression
and abreaction (catharsis) as therapeutic methods. He wrote a favorable
encyclopedia article on hypnotism, translated one of Bernheim's works
into German, and published an influential series of case studies with... Continue reading ...
Pierre Janet (1859-1947) reported some initial studies on a hypnotic subject in 1882 which came to the attention of Charcot who subsequently appointed him director of the psychological laboratory at the Salpêtrière in 1889, after Janet completed his PhD in philosophy which dealt with the subject of psychological automatism. In 1898 Janet was appointed lecturer in psychology at the Sorbonne, and in 1902 he became chair of experimental and comparative psychology at the Collège de France.
Jan... Continue reading ...
For several decades, Braid's work became more influential abroad
than in his own country, except for a handful of followers, most
notably Dr. John Milne Bramwell. The eminent neurologist Dr. George Miller Beard took Braid's theories to America. Meanwhile his works were translated into German by Wilhelm T. Preyer, Professor of Physiology at Jena University. The psychiatrist Albert Moll subsequently continued German research, publishing his Hypnotism
in 1889. However, the study of hypnotism mai... Continue reading ...
Following the French committee's findings, in his Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind (1827), Dugald Stewart, an influential academic philosopher of the "Scottish School of Common Sense",
encouraged physicians to salvage elements of Mesmerism by replacing the
supernatural theory of "animal magnetism" with a new interpretation
based upon "common sense" laws of physiology and psychology. Braid
explicitly quotes the following passage from Stewart[15],
It appears to me, that the general... Continue reading ...
Franz Mesmer
(1734-1815) believed that there was a magnetic force or "fluid" within
the universe which influenced the health of the human body. He
experimented with magnets to influence this field and so cause healing.
By around 1774 he had concluded that the same effects could be created
by passing the hands, at a distance, in front of the subject's body,
referred to as making "Mesmeric passes." The word mesmerize originates
from the name of Franz Mesmer; and was intentionally used to separa... Continue reading ...
According to his writings, Braid began to hear reports concerning
the practices of various Oriental meditation techniques immediately
after the publication of his major book on hypnotism, Neurypnology (1843). Braid first discusses hypnotism's historical precursors in a series of articles entitled Magic, Mesmerism, Hypnotism, etc., Historically & Physiologically Considered.
He draws analogies between his own practice of hypnotism and various
forms of Hindu yoga meditation and other ancient spi... Continue reading ...
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