The Ancient Origins of Hypno-Psychotherapy

The history of hypno-psychotherapy, or integrative hypnotherapy, involves the interweaving of several different strands of thought. These include the history of philosophical explorations of the mind, the history of treating issues related to the mind, as well as the history of using hypnosis as a therapeutic tool.

Questions concerning the nature of the human mind, making meaning, and reducing suffering can be traced to humanity’s earliest recorded history. For example, the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, an Indian scripture that scholars date to around the 7^th century BCE, explores the nature of sensory perceptions, thoughts, feelings, and the consciousness, or soul (“atma” in Sanskrit), that makes us aware of them all. The text also represents perhaps the earliest record of using meditative trance states to resolve psychological and existential concerns (Thompson, 2015).

The ancient Presocratic philosophers of Greece, beginning with Anaximander and his mentor Thales, who were historical contemporaries of Gautama Buddha in the 6^th-5^th century BCE, likewise engaged in metaphysical and pragmatic discussions on the nature of consciousness. They reflected on reflection itself, distinguishing between the soul and the body that appears to house or embody the soul. In Presocratic writings, the image of a beautiful nymph, or the subtlety of breath itself, is frequently used to represent the soul’s nature. Later, Plato’s leading disciple Aristotle created one of the first complex models of the soul (“psyche” in Greek). In Aristotle’s hierarchical view (Figure 1), plants have a vegetative psyche; animals have an even more expanded sensitive psyche; and humans transcend and include both of those levels of consciousness with their rational psyche (Klempe, 2020).

‍The Development of Mesmerism

Two millennia later, in the 1770s CE, a German doctor named Franz Anton Mesmer began experimenting with new methods of healing his patients. He believed that all objects and living beings shared a natural energy that flowed between them, which he called “animal magnetism.” Mesmer practiced different methods of transmitting this energy to patients, individually and in groups, to heal various physical and psychological issues. These methods often involved Mesmer inducing relaxed trance states, which came to be known as “mesmerism” (Forrest, 2002).

In 1843, British surgeon James Braid coined the term “hypnosis” after the Greek god of sleep, Hypnos. He was initially interested in Mesmer’s mesmerism as a way to alleviate “nervous” disorders and reduce the pain and anxiety of patients undergoing surgery. But he disagreed with the idea that the method worked by a subtle energy flowing between a doctor and a patient.Instead, he thought that trances were physiological states resembling sleep, which he induced in patients by having them stare at brightly lit objects (Britannica, 2021).

Following Braid’s work, several renowned neurologists, includingJean-Mitchell Charcot, endorsed hypnosis as a useful treatment for hysteria. By the 1900s, neurologist Hippolyte Bernheim and physician Ambroise-Auguste Liébeault had founded a dedicated school for using hypnosis in Nancy, France. The Nancy School, as it came to be known, was a psychotherapy institution that advocated the use of hypnosis for treating neurotic illnesses. Notably, Sigmund Freud was a student of Charcot (Gay, 1999).

Modern Psychology: Rooted in Hypnotherapy

Freud became closely acquainted with Charcot after offering to translate texts for the famed neurologist while studying at his hospital in Paris (Gay,1999; Lepoutre and Villa, 2021). As a result of this relationship, Freud joinedCharcot’s social group and learned, firsthand, about the study of hysteria and using hypnosis to treat it. Later, he would work with and for a doctor named Josef Breuer, who introduced him to the hysteria patient that later became known as “Anna O.” The patient was reportedly known to spontaneously fall into hypnotic states that would foster insights into her neurotic problems.

Although Anna O.’s treatment could not be described as successful, it is fair to say that her case and experience were the precursors for Freudian psychoanalysis. Eleven years later, Breuer and Freud went on to publish their findings on the nature of hysteria. They found that every case of hysteria seemed to originate from some traumatic experience that seemed forgotten. However, if patients were able to access the unconscious precursors to their neurotic reactions, their symptoms would be alleviated. However, Freud moved away from the practice of hypnotherapy, finding that the suggested states were not sufficiently deep to uproot neurosis. Instead, he began looking into dreams, publishing his findings as The Interpretation of Dreams. Other psychoanalysts, like Freud’s colleague Carl Jung, also concluded that dreams provided the deepest window onto the psyche, which diminished hypnosis’s reputation in the eyes of many for some time (Gay, 1999).

The Rise of Hypno-Psychotherapy

However, in the 1950s, an American psychiatrist named Milton H. Erickson developed a revolutionary approach to hypnotism, now referred to as Ericksonian hypnotherapy. Since dysfunctional behaviors are defined within social contexts,Erickson used close observations of his subject’s behaviors to build a connection with them. He called this method “utilization.” While speaking informally, he would expertly direct their attention using intentional language patterns and unique client-specific strategies, resulting in relaxed but focused trance states.While his approach differed in some ways from historical hypnosis techniques, Erickson viewed hypnosis in broad terms as the achievement of any mental state in which therapeutically useful insights can be gained (Weitzenhoffer, 1989). 

As Ericksonian hypnosis became more widely adopted, the profession of “hypno-psychotherapy”was essentially born. This discipline can be defined as psychotherapy that uses hypnosis in a clinical setting to enhance the effectiveness of treatment. A hypno-psychotherapist, unlike a pure hypnotherapist, integrates both hypnosis and potentially many other traditional psychotherapeutic practices and perspective to help patients make meaning of their experiences and achieve their therapeutic goals (EAP, 2021).

Generally, modern hypno-psychotherapy begins sessions with hypnotic induction and is followed by a treatment strategy that leads to hypnotic termination. In the induction, the therapist guides the patient into a deep relaxation as a way of leaving physical concerns and the analytical mind behind to access a deeper state of their psyche. Since this process involves imagination, focused attention, and analytical suspension, hypno-psychotherapy is effective for the treatment of psychosomatic problems and other neuroses (EAP, 2021). It allows the patient to access deep-seated memories through time, make sense of their thought structure through a 360-degree lens, and reframe their thought patterns in a way that helps them resolve their presenting issues. At termination, the therapist makes positive post-hypnotic suggestions. Finally, the therapist and subject discuss the hypnotic experience to plan for future therapy sessions, examine symptoms, and progress toward their mutually agreed objectives.

References

Alexander, Ian. “The structure of the souls of plants, animals, and humans, according to Aristotle.” 21 November 2016. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Aristotelian_Soul.pngAccessed 21 March 2021.

Britannica, E. James Braid. EncyclopediaBritannica.https://www.britannica.com/biography/James-Braid-British-surgeon Accessed 21March 2021.

EAP (EuropeanAssociation for Psychotherapy). Hypno Psychotherapy. https://www.europsyche.org/approaches/hypnopsychotherapy/Accessed 23 July 2021.

Forrest, Derek. “Mesmer.” International Journal of Clinical andExperimental Hypnosis, vol. 50, no. 4, Oct. 2002, pp. 295–308, 10.1080/00207140208410106.Accessed 29 Nov. 2019.

Freud, Sigmund, and Adam Phillips. “ThePenguin Freud Reader.” Amazon, Penguin, 2006.

Klempe, Sven Hroar. “Psyche” in Ancient Greece. In: Tracing the Emergence of Psychology. Theory and History in the Human and Social Sciences p. 1520–⁠1750, 2020,Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53701-2_3

Lepoutre, Thomas, and François Villa. “Freudwith Charcot: Freud's discovery and the question of diagnosis.” TheInternational journal of psycho-analysis vol. 96, 2: 345-68, 2015.doi:10.1111/1745-8315.12247

Thompson, Evan. Waking, Dreaming, Being:Self and consciousness in neuroscience, meditation, and philosophy. Columbia University Press, 2015.

Weitzenhoffer, Andre M. The Practice ofHypnotism, Vol 2. New York: John Wiley and Sons. p. 271, 1989. ISBN0-471-62168-4.

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