What Is Hypnosis?

What Is Hypnosis?

Hypnosis is a psychological condition or an altered state of mind during which the subconscious of a person is activated in a way to accept suggestions in order to change behavior or thinking. Hypnotized people can be described as people who are aware of their surrounding while lost in thought. Usually during hypnosis there are two parties, the hypnotist who is the operator of the process, and the subject. The hypnotist's job is to "engage the attention of the subject and assign certain tasks while uttering monotonous, repetitive verbal commands" in order to "respond to suggestions for changes in subjective experience, alterations in perception, sensation, emotion, thought or behavior". The subject's role is equally important, as he/she has to interact with the hypnotist in order for the operation to success. In fact we can speak about a talent or ability of a person to be hypnotized. Moreover, hypnosis can be self-induced, through relaxation, regulating breathing, and other spiritual exercises.

History of Hypnosis:

Before the 15th century, illness was often thought to be a punishment from God or gods. Doctors and magicians at that time would use their magic and techniques to cause an altered state of consciousness to heal the patients. Ancient Egyptians and Greeks utilized their temples and shrines for the purpose of healing patients using induced sleep.

During the 15th century, Paracelsus, a Swiss physician and chemist had a theory that the heavenly bodies exerted an influence on disease and cure by the force of the magnetic fluid

Then in 1765, Franz Anton Mesmer came and started conducting his own studies about hypnosis. He stated that a person could use this magnetic fluid to heal himself. This magnetic healing was performed by applying magnets to the pain areas of the body.

In 1784, a commission was formed by Louis XVI king of France, Benjamin Franklin an American printer, author, diplomat, philosopher and scientist, and M. La Guillotin a French physician. This commission concluded that magnetism accompanied with imagination, has some effect. Further more, Le Marquis de Puysegur, a member of society, assumed that the magnetic power was produced by the power of the mind and can be transferred to the patient through the fingertips. He discovered that he could produce a state of sleep in which the patient would obey his commands.

Then in the year 1837, Dr. John Elliston, a Professor of Medicine at UCH in London, carried out public clinical demonstrations of hypnosis, revealing its effects on voluntary and involuntary muscle contractions, somnambulism or sleepwalking, analgesia or the ability to control pain, hallucinations and more. In the same year, a Scottish surgeon by the name of James Esdaile, performed many surgery operations painlessly using hypnosis or as it was now know as “mesmerism”. His technique would produce something close to a suspended animation state, also knows as the Esdaile state which was characterized by stroking the patient’s body for continuous hours.

In the year 1841, a British doctor by the name of James Braid started utilizing the mesmerism method using his bright lancet to put his patients in a state of hypnotic sleep. It was in this state that the patients accepted his healing suggestions.

In 1884, a French doctor by the name of Ambroise-August Liebeault, said that he could heal patients in the hypnotic state by suggestions. After 2 years, in 1886, he was joined by Professor Bernheim, also a French doctor; together they published a book by the name of “De La Suggestion” which refuted the theory of suggestion. More over, in the same year, at the Hospital of Salpetriere in France, Jean Martin Charcot stated that hypnosis was a pathological state similar to hysteria and that both states are interchangeable.

Additionally, in 1890, Josef Breuer and Sigmund Freud, two of Charcot’s students, altered the approach to hypnosis from suggesting away the symptoms, to abolishing the evident causes. Breuer perceived that hypnosis patients would often remember previous events and talk about them, thus causing emotional outbursts, which in turn cures the patient from all the symptoms. This was called “talking cure”. Frued also experimented in “talking cure”, but later on he seized working with Breuer and started developing his own theory of psychoanalysis.

Hypnosis was widely used between 1914 and 1918 during World War 1, where the Germans used hypnotism to cure their soldiers from shell-shock a mental illness caused by the sound of exploding shells at a close range to the soldiers. This method proved very effective because the soldiers were cured almost immediately and were quickly sent to the war front to continue the battle.

After World War 2, Milton Erickson said that hynosis is a state of mind that everybody normally enters frequently. On the foot steps of Erickson, hypnosis became a well respected practice exploited by doctors, psychologists, business and law enforcement. By that time it was used as a method of self-help and improvement where the patient would be able to cure him or herself without the use of a therapist.

Therefore, hypnosis was later on defined as a tool for cure and not a cure in itself. Hypnosis is used for stress management, stress related disorders, dental and medical anxiety, anesthesia, obstetrics or medical cure during the pregnancy stage, and pain management including pain related to cancer. Hypnosis was a good method that can reprogram the subconscious, enabling the person to improve his life.

Mesmer, Franz Friedrich Anton:

An Austrian physician (1734-1815), well known for including a trancelike or an unreal state, called mesmerism as a curing method. Mesmer was born near Konstanz Germany and studied at the University of Vienna. In 1772 he stated the existence of a power, close to magnetism; this power uses extraordinary influence on the human anatomy. He named this power “animal magnetism”. In 1775 he published his discovery saying that it was of great medical importance. His new system was successfully used to cure patients therefore his method of cure received support from member of the medical profession. Later in 1785, the French government appointed an investigative commission composed of physicians and scientists to further study Mesmer’s discovery. But the commission’s report came against Mesmer’s theory. Due to the rejection of his theory, Mesmer fell into disrepute and spent his life in obscurity. Since that day, his theory has been elevated from