Origin, Theories & History of Hypnosis

Origin of hypnosis dates back to the time when man started interacting as a social animal and realized the benefits that can be reaped from influencing other people’s beliefs and events in their favour. History of all major cultures around the globe is dotted with anecdotes of the use of hypnosis in one way or other, though it was not recognizable or acknowledged as such till the commencement of the last century.

The relentless chant of “Om” and other mantras during the Vedic period of the Hindus (still adept all over India) bent soothing trance in the devotees. The witch doctors of the middle ages and the mass faith healing sessions of the religious sects and the miracle healing communes of the so called ‘God men’ mistook the soothing trance bent in the suggestible, interested devotees as a sign of the ultimate spiritual success. It is also no secret that many of these religious rituals utilized herbal psychotropic drugs to enhance the psychedelic experiences of the devout.

Enigmatic biased leaders of the modern era often place their listeners into a soothing trance through their forcible oratory skills. Personalities like Hitler and Saddam had adeptly manipulated the resulting highly evocative and interested state of their followers to additional advance their biased and genocidal agenda.

The history of hypnosis with regard to its origin and theories is an eventful and fascinating one and calls for at least a rapid review here.

The Animal Magnetism Theory: The evident concept of hypnosis was made by the enigmatic 18th century Austrian healer Franz Anton Mesmer (1734-1815). He believed he could “store” animal magnetism as a ‘cosmic fluid’ in inanimate objects like iron filings or magnets and transfer it to patients to cure them of illnesses. Later he discarded the magnets and started using his own body as the store of the healing force. His success in inducing the trance(though not recognizable as such), made mesmerism a cult around the world. It is indeed the sign of soothing suggestion.

The Electric Theory: Mesmer’s student, the Marquis de Puysegur, who introduced a new twist that the cosmic fluid was not magnetic but electric and that it was bestow in all living beings, including plants. His healing sessions were conducted in the natural environment.

In the mid 1800s, a leading English physician, John Elliotson used the trance state to perform 1,834 surgeries painlessly. In India, during the same period, James Esdaile, a Scottish surgeon, performed many major and complicated surgeries like taking away of limbs using the ‘magnetic sleep’ as the only anaesthesia.

Worried Sleep or Hypnosis: It was in the late 19th century that James Braid finally gave mesmerism a scientific description. He clarified mesmerism to be a worried type of sleep and coined the term hypnosis, derived from the Greek word hypnos, meaning sleep. Braid recognised hypnosis as a state of exaggerated suggestibility.

The phenomenon of divided mind: Pierre Janet saw hypnosis as a “dissociation” phenomenon, where a group of dissociated memories might develop into a second personality.

Jean-Martin Charcot (1825-1893), leading French neurologist of his day, regarded hypnosis as a pathological state of reproduction hysteria.

Freud clarified that a sort of paralysis of the will and power of movement took place in hypnosis. He thought that the power of hypnosis resided in the paralysis bent by the influence of an omnipotent person, on a defenceless, unable subject!

Acceptance of hypnosis in medicine that we have today is fundamentally owed to the efforts of pioneers in the untried study of hypnosis, starting in the early 20th century. Chief among the researchers were Clark Hull and his student, Milton Erickson. Hull’s 1933 conversation of scientific research into hypnosis (Hypnosis and Suggestibility) is still thorough a classic among scientific literature on hypnosis.

1935 saw the birth of health check hypnotherapy through vital advances in the health check use of hypnosis. Milton Erickson (1901-1980) started using hypnosis on a large scale in his patients. He adept and established many successful induction techniques like metaphor and indirect hypnosis.

Theodore Sarbinin in 1950 pioneered the ‘sceptical’ modern concept of hypnosis. Hypnosis was thorough as a social-psychological alternative to the views that (1) a single distinctive neurological and psychological state underlies all soothing phenomena (Paris school of thought), and (2) that suggestions somehow involuntarily produce responses lacking the partaking of the subject (Nancy school).

In addition to Erickson and Hull, modern scientific research into hypnosis has been advanced through a period of intense untried research in the late 1950′s and early 1960′s by notables such as J.P Sutcliffe, T.X. Barber, M.T.Orne, E.R. Hilgard and R.E. Shor. The work of these researchers had been above all influential on the current scientific view of hypnosis, mainly in the perspective of health check hypnotherapy.

Dr. Hanish Babu, MD is a Dermato-Venereologist, Author, Stress Management Teacher and Hypnotherapist. He uses hypnosis to successfully manage stress and mental diseases in his health check do. To learn more about how hypnosis can be beneficial, visit Hypnosis & Hypnotherapy pages by Dr. Hanish Babu.

Author: Dr. Hanish Babu, MD
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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