When thinking about hypnotherapy, images of magician-style hypnotherapists bringing willing audience members up on stage and commanding them to laugh or cry spring to mind for many. What a lot of people don’t know is that hypnotherapy is actually recognised and used by many psychologists and doctors as a form of treatment for various mental and physical health conditions. While you might need a formal qualification such as an online counselling diploma to learn about the science behind this kind of therapy, the history and current practice are a little easier to grasp.
An explainer on hypnosis
Hypnosis is a psychological state that occurs when a person is essentially operating under the direction of a hypnotist or hypnotherapist. A hypnotised person is in a heightened state of concentration, with their attention on a trained professional who guides what they see, feel, smell, and do. The state of hypnosis allows a person to be entirely focused on their hypnotist, increasing their responsiveness to the professional and making them relatively unconscious of their surrounding environment. Hypnotists are able to guide emotions, sensations, memories, thoughts and behaviours, and the effects of their work can be transferable to life beyond the state of hypnosis.
The history of hypnosis
While hypnosis is relatively new to many modern medical treatments, the practice itself has existed in various ways throughout history. The first known written record of hypnosis was in a 1027 publication called The Book of Healing, although the practice wasn’t coined with the term ‘hypnotism’ until the 1840s when English physician James Braid studied it and named it after the Greek God of sleep Hypnos.
In its earliest applications, hypnotism was a spiritual and religious practice, thought to heal various ailments. By the late 1700s, hypnotherapy started to become more of a scientific practice. It was, however, still used to treat various conditions, and studied in relation to magnetic forces. German physician Franz Anton Mesmer’s theory was that all living things had a natural magnetism between them, known as “animal magnetism”. Mesmer believed that hypnotism was a healing system that made use of this magnetism between the hypnotist and hypnotised to cure illnesses.
By the 1800s, Mesmer was largely discredited and experts moved away from magnetism theories. In the early 19th century, a priest named Abbe Faria shocked the public when he showed his ability to hypnotise his subjects, demonstrating that hypnotism truly worked based on the willingness of a person and the power of suggestion. In the years following, doctors used hypnotism as a method for anaesthesia, although soon the practice became more targeted to mental health treatments than physical. In the 1880s, French physician Ambroise-Auguste, and professor of Medicine Hippolyte Bernheim, wrote that hypnotism did not involve physical forces or processes but was the combination of psychologically mediated responses.
Around this same time, Austrian physician Sigmund Freud was visiting France and was impressed by the potential of hypnotic therapy. He returned to Vienna and began using hypnosis as a form of therapy to help people recall traumatic events that they had forgotten. He also continued to work on psychoanalysis, a method for treating mental health disorders that is shaped by psychoanalytic theory, emphasising unconscious mental practices. Freud eventually gave up on his work in hypnotism to focus on methods of free association, a form of psychoanalysis that explores the unconscious mind by asking patients to share their thoughts completely freely. Free association is used by many therapists in conjunction with hypnosis. In 1889, The First International Congress for Experimental and Therapeutic Hypnotism was held in France.
Despite Freud ultimately moving on from hypnosis, he was still a pioneer for how the practice is used today. Following World Wars I and II, physicians treated soldiers with trauma using hypnosis. In the many years since physicians have continued to research and utilise hypnosis for the treatment of various conditions.
Modern applications of hypnosis
Hypnotherapy is now used by some qualified mental health professionals and doctors to treat disorders including depression, anxiety, addictions, and post-traumatic stress disorder. Some physicians have even started using hypnosis for selected physical conditions again, including insomnia, asthma, and gastrointestinal disorders such as irritable bowel syndrome. In any case, hypnosis is typically used in addition to other forms of treatment such as psychotherapy and traditional medicine. Similarly to many other forms of treatment, everyone is different and your physician will work with you to determine whether or not hypnosis could work for you, and if so, how you can go about it together.
Not every professional or doctor uses hypnosis as a form of treatment, and there is still some disagreement in the medical industry about its effectiveness and use. However, it is becoming a far more widely accepted form of treatment for many conditions, and there is significant and increasing research behind it that demonstrates its effectiveness in treating or managing a range of conditions.
