Freud used therapeutic hypnosis for many years and met with success. He translated books written by the leading practitioners of his day (Charcot and Bernheim). But, Freud met with discouragement. He could not hypnotize many patients and, often, the effects in hypnotized patients were short lived. I suspect he renounced hypnosis as ineffective both because of his desire for consistent success and because he viewed the subconscious, not as a source for good, but as a cesspool of aggressive and sexual impulses. Like his contemporaries, Freud also failed to realize that the client, not the hypnotherapist, controls his or her use and "depth" of hypnosis.

Luckily, research continued in both the West and Russia, confined within Universities. Results in research confirmed and built upon past knowledge of hypnosis. Then, in the 1950’s the American and British Medical Associations accepted the value of hypnosis as a viable tool for healing. This created a momentum which is still growing today, due largely to the genius of Dr. Milton Erickson.

A SELECTIVE MODERN WESTERN HISTORY OF HYPNOSIS...

1775: Dr. Franz Mesmer developed healing by "animal magnetism" or mesmerism, which was later renamed hypnosis.

1784: Count Maxime de Puysegut discovered a form of deep trance he called somnambulism.

1821: First reports of painless dentistry and surgery in France using magnetism. Many breakthroughs were made by such Frenchmen as Ambrose Liebeault (1823-1904), J. M. Charcot (1825-93) a Paris neurologist, and Charles Richet (1850-1935).

James Braid

click to enlarge

1791-1868: John Elliotson, President of the Royal Medical and Surgical Society of London and a professor at London University, professed belief in magnetism/mesmerism and used hypnotic trance to perform 1,834 surgical operations.

1795-1860: A London/Scottish eye doctor and physician, James Braid, renamed magnetism/mesmerism as HYPNOSIS.

1845-53: A British surgeon in India, James Esdail, performed 2,000 operations, including amputations, with the patients under hypno-anaesthesia and feeling no pain.

1857-1926: Another Frenchman, Emile Coue, pioneered the use of autosuggestion and the use of affirmations, i.e. "Day by day in every way I am getting better and better."

1883-1887: Sigmund Freud, father of the cathartic method, free association and psychoanalysis, became interested in hypnosis and began to practice it. Not being very good at it, he went on to develop psychoanalysis.

1891: The British Medical Association reported favorably on the use of hypnosis in the field of medicine.

1968: The British Society of Medical and Dental Hypnosis was founded, exclusively for medical doctors and dentists.

1901-1980: Milton H. Erickson MD, the recognized leading authority on clinical hypnosis, and a master of indirect hypnosis, was able to put a person into a trance without even mentioning the word hypnosis.

1914: World War I. A new Era of hypnosis revived, mainly due to the multiplicity of paralytic and amnesia cases with psychogenic origin and few psychiatrists available.

1925-1947: Use of hypnosis in dentistry developed in the U.S.

1950’s: Both the American and British Medical Associations issued statements supporting the usefulness of hypnosis as a form of therapy.

1958: British Hypnotherapy founded.

1962: A brain operation was performed under hypnosis in Indianapolis in the U.S.

From a statue of the Greek God Hypnos (redrawn from fragments)

Image copyright T. Connelly 2000 - click to enlarge

THE END