Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy through the ages

The Ancient World

Hypnosis in some form or other has been around for centuries. Healers in the ancient civilisations of Egypt, Greece and Rome were well acquainted with the therapeutic effects of trance states.

Perhaps the best known of these ancient applications of Hypnosis are the Sleep Temples of the ancient world. These first appeared in Egypt around the 5th century BC. In these temples, dedicated to the goddess Isis, the person to be healed was put into a hypnotic sleep state by a priest in order that they may be visited by the goddess in their dreams and thus be availed of her healing powers.

This spread to the Greco-Roman world where it was practised in temples dedicated not to Isis but to Asklepios, the god of medicine and healing.

The techniques used by the priests to induce these 'healing' trance states such as the 'laying on of hands', the fixing of visual attention and the use of rhythmic chants and music are still used today by 'medicine men', shamen and healers in traditional cultures from Africa to South America. You might also recognise elements of them in some modern stage performances!

The 18th and 19th centuries

In the 18th century these techniques were revived and repackaged by a flamboyant Austrian physician by the name of Franz Anton Mesmer.

Mesmer became quite a celebrity amongst fashionable Paris society using what he called 'Animal Magnetism' to treat all sorts of conditions.

He believed that illness resulted in an imbalance in the body's natural magnetism and that balance could be restored by using his techniques. What Mesmer was doing did in fact contain many elements of modern Hypnotherapy, using trance states and suggestion enable his patients to tap into the power and resources of their unconscious mind to gain relief from their symptoms. Of course Mesmer himself was completely unaware of the concept of the unconscious (or sub-conscious) mind and the only lasting reminder of Mesmer's work is the word 'mesmeric'.

It was in the 19th century that the concept of the unconscious was first postulated by the pioneer of psychotherapy Sigmund Freud. Freud's revolutionary ideas gave us the concept of the unconscious mind and its function that we know today. Freud also experimented with Hypnosis to uncover repressed memories during psychotherapy sessions.

It was a Scottish doctor working in Manchester, by the name of James Braid who gave us the word Hypnosis (he also gave us the famous swinging pocket watch). Braid was a another pioneer of Hypnotherapy and from his observations he equated the trance state with sleep- hence his use of the Greek word for sleep Hypnos as the root for his new word. Unfortunately in the 19th century Dr. Braid did not have access to the technology to be able to observe brainwaves and thus recognise trance as something other than sleep or we might now have a different name for what we know as Hypnosis.

Another Scotsman, a surgeon, James Esdaile also pioneered the use of Hypnosis in his medical work. Esdaile was working before the discovery of chemical anaesthetics when surgery was brutal, painful and traumatic. Esdaile discovered that some of his patients could be 'mesmerised' into such a deep state of trance that he could perform even quite extreme surgical procedures such as amputations without pain. He is reputed to have performed over 250 operations using this technique.

The 20th century

With the introduction of effective anaesthetics, the wider availability of therapeutic drugs and the improvements in surgical procedures at the beginning of the century the work of Esdaile and Braid was largely forgotten. Hypnosis and its therapeutic benefits now fell mainly into the realm of Psychology, Psychiatry and Neurology.

A resurgence of interest in the use of Hypnotherapy came during and immediately after WW1 when it was used to help in treating men with 'Shell Shock' or 'Post-Traumatic Stress'. By the outbreak of WW2 this condition was much better understood and again Hypnotherapy was used as a treatment as it was later in the century in the wake of the Vietnam War.

In the 40's, 50's and 60's new theories and discoveries in many areas of psychology such as psychotherapy, psychoanalysis and behavioural psychology were combined with Hypnosis to give us what we now know as Hypnotherapy.

In 1955 the British Medical Association (BMA) recognised Hypnotherapy as a valid form of treatment and subsequently allowed it to be taught in medical schools.

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