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The History of Hypnotherapy

Hypnotherapy has been applied as a form of therapy since the ancient civilizations of Greece and Egypt. The structure, content, methods of application and the way it has been perceived by different cultures varies across centuries.

Evidence from Ancient Greece report rituals of people induced into a sleep-like state by priests to invoke the God of sleep (Hypnos) and his son the god of dreams (Morpheus). They would cure the patient from any evil (Hartland, 2002).

During the middle ages hypnosis followed a general assumption close to demonology, until the 18th century Mesmer (an Austrian doctor) used the force of magnetism to cure people. His practice, known as Mesmerism dominated the field of hypnosis, until the importance of individual differences was noted by a Portuguese Priest, Abbe de Faria.

In the early 19th century, James Esdaile, a Scottish surgeon, applied hypnosis to eliminate the pain on patients he had to operate with high success. The term "hypnotism" was put forward by James Braid, a Scottish doctor. He used hypnotic inductions with the use of eye fixation in a particular spot and noticed that trance can be experienced in different ways.

His ideas were adopted by Jean Martin Charcot, a French Professor, who established a link between hypnosis and mental illness as he applied hypnosis to psychotic patients.

At the same time, another French therapist, Pierre Janet (psychologist and psychotherapist) used the knowledge from his clients' behaviour to formulate a 70 year lasting belief on the use of hypnosis to automatic responses.

Later on Freud contributed significantly in the decline of the use of hypnosis in mental illness, as he put forward the effects of psychoanalysis.

In the late 19th century, hypnosis is been revived again, mainly because of the influence of Milton Erickson (1901-1980). His personal history is remarkable as he managed to use his own disabilities and illness to create and put forward a magnificent therapeutic approach.

Erickson was dyslexic as a child and at the age of 17 he suffered from polio which left him paralyzed. He used his own experience to understand the human mind and its ability to overcome pain. By showing a genuine interest in the people around him he developed a deep insight in the psychology of the people and gradually started applying techniques to influence those around him towards a desired outcome. He was largely self-taught and managed to study medicine, psychiatry and psychology.

Erickson is most known as a hypnotherapist, as he put forward the most influential method of hypnotherapy. He understood the power of the unconscious mind and developed different approaches to work in it, like the indirect suggestions approach, the confusion technique, the use of metaphors, and Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP).

The use of indirect suggestions was his major success and he managed to cure "impossible" conditions with this method. However, the most striking seems to be his interest in the patient's condition which (for me) is the key to his success as a therapist. An example is his answer to an interviewer below:

ERICKSON: You know, I had one patient this last July who had four or five years of psychoanalysis and got nowhere with it. And someone who knows her said, "How much attention did you give to the past?" I said, "You know, I completely forgot about that." That patient is, I think, a reasonably cured person. It was a severe washing compulsion, as much as twenty hours a day. I didn't go in to the cause or the etiology; the only searching question I asked was "When you get in the shower to scrub yourself for hours, tell me, do you start at the top of your head, or the soles of your feet, or in the middle? Do you wash from the neck down, or do you start with your feet and wash up? Or do you start with your head and wash down?"

INTERVIEWER: Why did you ask that?

ERICKSON: So that she knew I was really interested.

INTERVIEWER: So that you could join her in this?

ERICKSON: No, so that she knew I was really interested.

After Erickson's work and following the late 20th century, hypnotherapy has been considered in a more scientific level as a form of therapy. It has been widely used in psychotherapy, followed by an increased interest in dentistry and other medical fields, and a wider acceptance by the public as an effective medium form of therapy (Hartland 2002).