The history of hypnosis

Four thousand, six hundred years ago, Wong Tai, the father of Chinese medicine, wrote about hypnotic procedures in his medical texts, the Hindu Vedas, comprised around 1500 BC also refer to trance and the use of hypnosis and they often took their sick to sleep temples to be cured by hypnotic suggestion as was also found to be the case in Egypt and Greece.

Law of Manu, which was the ancient Sanskrit Science of the Indian people, categorized different states of hypnosis discerning different levels of gradation: the "Sleep-Waking " state, the "Dream-Sleep " state, and the "Ecstasy-Sleep " state. Hypnotic-like inductions were used to place the individual in a sleep-like state, although it is now accepted that hypnosis is different from sleep

Western scientists first became involved in hypnosis around 1770, when Dr. Franz Mesmer (1734-1815), a physician from Austria, started investigating an effect he called " animal magnetism " or "mesmerism " (the latter name still remaining popular today). Although he effected many dramatic cures using hypnosis, he was eventually discredited by the scientific establishment because they could find no evidence for the 'universal fluid' that he considered to be an essential part of the process.

Scottish surgeon James Braid (1795 – 1860) discovered by chance a patient in his waiting room in a deep state of fixation on an oil lamp. He found he could instruct this patient to close his eyes and go deeply into trance without all the rigmarole of Mesmer's theory. Braid was responsible for the tern 'hypnosis' from the Greek 'to sleep' which he later changed to mono-ideism to describe the narrowed focus of attention which develops in hypnosis. He would often use the now clichéd swinging watch as a way of developing this narrowed attention.

Early in the 19th century a British surgeon in India, James Esdaile, recognised the benefits of hypnosis on pain relief and performed hundreds of operations using hypnosis as the 0nly anesthetic. On his return to Britain, Esdaile tried to convince the medical establishment of the advantages of hypnosis only to find his ideas ignored in favour of the new chemical anaesthetics.

Also, in France at the same time, there were stirrings of interest in France, where it could be said a whole 'self help' movement started with the pharmacist and therapist Emile Coue (1857 – 1926). He invented affirmations such as 'every day in every way, I'm getting better and better' which we now recognise as a form of self hypnosis.

Freud and Jung both started their careers as hypnotists, inspired by Frenchmen such as Pierre Janet, but neither were very good and soon abandoned it.

The man who it can be said to have done more for psychotherapy than any other was Milton Erickson. He was an unorthodox psychiatrist, family doctor, psychotherapist and master hypnotist who revolutionized western philosophy. Thanks to him, the subject of hypnosis has shed its shackles of superstition and is now widely recognized as one of the most powerful tools for change.

Erickson was a master of communication on its many levels and pioneered family therapy, systemic therapy and brief solution focused therapy.

He kept therapy brief by concentrating on a person's resources and strengths at a time when the rest of the field were obsessed with long term therapy. Erickson used hypnosis as an integral part of his work, from which a new, indirect form of hypnosis has sprung up, now known as Ericksonian Hypnosis. For further Study there is no better source of information on techniques of indirect hypnosis.