History of hypnosis
He contrasted the hypnotic state with normal sleep, and defined it as "a peculiar condition of the nervous system, induced by a fixed and abstracted attention of the mental and visual eye, on one object, not of an exciting nature.
"[1] Braid elaborated upon this brief definition in a later work, Hypnotic Therapeutics:[2] The real origin and essence of the hypnotic condition, is the induction of a habit of abstraction or mental concentration, in which, as in reverie or spontaneous abstraction, the powers of the mind are so much engrossed with a single idea or train of thought, as, for the nonce, to render the individual unconscious of, or indifferently conscious to, all other ideas, impressions, or trains of thought.
An Irishman by the name of Valentine Greatrakes (1628–1682) was known as "the Great Irish Stroker"[5] for his ability to heal people by laying his hands on them and passing magnets over their bodies.
Johann Joseph Gassner (1727–1779), a Catholic priest of the time, believed that disease was caused by evil spirits and could be exorcised by incantations and prayer.
The French king put together a Board of Inquiry that included chemist Lavoisier, Benjamin Franklin, and a medical doctor who was an expert in pain control named Joseph Ignace Guillotin.
In the 1840s and 1850s, Carl Reichenbach began experiments to find any scientific validity to "mesmeric" energy, which he called Odic force after the Norse god Odin.
My theory, moreover, has this additional recommendation, that it is level to our comprehension, and adequate to account for all which is demonstrably true, without offering any violence to reason and common sense, or being at variance with generally admitted physiological and psychological principles.
Instead, Braid adopted a skeptical position, influenced by the philosophical school of Scottish Common Sense Realism, attempting to explain the Mesmeric phenomena on the basis of well-established laws of psychology and physiology.
After Braid's death in 1860, interest in hypnotism temporarily waned, and gradually shifted from Britain to France, where research began to grow, reaching its peak around the 1880s with the work of Hippolyte Bernheim and Jean-Martin Charcot.
According to his writings, Braid began to hear reports concerning the practices of various meditation techniques immediately after the publication of his major book on hypnotism, Neurypnology (1843).
Braid's interest in meditation really developed when he was introduced to the Dabistān-i Mazāhib, the "School of Religions", an ancient Persian text describing a wide variety of Oriental religious practices: Last May [1843], a gentleman residing in Edinburgh, personally unknown to me, who had long resided in India, favoured me with a letter expressing his approbation of the views which I had published on the nature and causes of hypnotic and mesmeric phenomena.
In corroboration of my views, he referred to what he had previously witnessed in oriental regions, and recommended me to look into the "Dabistan", a book lately published, for additional proof to the same effect.
As he later wrote, Inasmuch as patients can throw themselves into the nervous sleep, and manifest all the usual phenomena of Mesmerism, through their own unaided efforts, as I have so repeatedly proved by causing them to maintain a steady fixed gaze at any point, concentrating their whole mental energies on the idea of the object looked at; or that the same may arise by the patient looking at the point of his own finger, or as the Magi of Persia and Yogi of India have practised for the last 2,400 years, for religious purposes, throwing themselves into their ecstatic trances by each maintaining a steady fixed gaze at the tip of his own nose; it is obvious that there is no need for an exoteric influence to produce the phenomena of Mesmerism.
On 28 July 1847, a decree from the Sacred Congregation of the Holy office (Roman Curia) declared that "Having removed all misconception, foretelling of the future, explicit or implicit invocation of the devil, the use of animal magnetism (Hypnosis) is indeed merely an act of making use of physical media that are otherwise licit and hence it is not morally forbidden, provided it does not tend toward an illicit end or toward anything depraved."
La méthode numérique ("The numerical method") led to a number of systematic experimental examinations of hypnosis in France, Germany, and Switzerland.
Janet described the theory of dissociation, the splitting of mental aspects under hypnosis (or hysteria) so skills and memory could be made inaccessible or recovered.
The Annual Meeting of the British Medical Association, in 1892, unanimously endorsed the therapeutic use of hypnosis and rejects the theory of Mesmerism (animal magnetism).
[17] His method was an ordered sequence of rational, systematic, intricately constructed, subject-centred hypnotherapeutic interactions that stressed the significance of both unconscious and conscious autosuggestion, delivered a collection of well-polished common-sense explanations, a persuasive set of experiential exercises, a powerfully efficacious hypnotism-centred ego-strengthening intervention and, finally, detailed instruction in the specific ritual through which his empirically determined formula "Every day, in every way, I’m getting better and better" was to be self-administered twice daily.
Much of the work of early 20th century self-help teachers (such as Norman Vincent Peale, Robert H. Schuller, and W. Clement Stone) was derived from that of Coué.
Impressed by this approach, Stalin later set up a nationwide program headed by Velvoski, who originally combined hypnosis with Pavlov's techniques, but eventually used the latter almost exclusively.
Fernand Lamaze, having visited Russia, brought back to France "childbirth without pain through the psychological method," which in turn showed more reflexologic than hypnotic inspiration.
[citation needed] William McDougall (1871–1944), an English psychologist, treated soldiers with "shell shock" and criticised certain aspects of Freudian theory such as the concept of abreaction.
The main result of Hull's study was to rein in the extravagant claims of hypnotists, especially regarding extraordinary improvements in cognition or the senses under hypnosis.
Hull's experiments showed the reality of some classical phenomena such as mentally induced pain reduction and apparent inhibition of memory recall.
Similarly, moderate increases in certain physical capacities and changes to the threshold of sensory stimulation could be induced psychologically; attenuation effects could be especially dramatic.
In an address from the Vatican on hypnosis in childbirth, the Pope gave these guidelines: In the United Kingdom, the Hypnotism Act 1952 was instituted to regulate stage hypnotists' public entertainments.
On 23 April 1955, the British Medical Association (BMA) approved the use of hypnosis in the areas of psychoneuroses and hypnoanesthesia in pain management in childbirth and surgery.
[citation needed] Milton Hyland Erickson (5 December 1901 – 25 March 1980) was an American psychiatrist and psychologist specializing in medical hypnosis and family therapy.
The Qualifications and Curriculum Authority started conferring optional certificates and diplomas in international level through National Awarding Bodies by assessing learning outcomes of training/accrediting-prior-experiential-learning.
[18] Nicholas Spanos, who died in 1994, was Professor of Psychology and Director of the Laboratory for Experimental Hypnosis at Carleton University and a leading nonstate theorist and hypnotic skills training researcher.
