Читать книгу An Introduction to Hypnosis & Hypnotherapy - Damian PhD Hamill - Страница 4

In the introduction I referred to the fact that there are a number of esoteric and eccentric approaches to hypnosis. Indeed, in many people’s minds, hypnosis is still associated with mystical or occult forces. Whilst I hope that this book will sweep away such misconceptions I feel that the student of hypnosis will benefit from understanding how such associations originally arose. To this end I would like to present a brief history of hypnosis. Obviously, any subject as extensive and long established as hypnosis is likely to have a detailed history. My purpose, however, is simply to pick out some of the key figures in order to give an overview of the historical development of the subject.

Once we recognise what hypnosis is we can say that hypnosis has been around for a very long time in various forms of ritual and healing ceremonies. Most people agree, however, that a recognisably modern practice of hypnosis began with Franz Anton Mesmer (1734-1815) who devised an approach to healing called Mesmerism. Mesmer was born in part of what is now Germany and studied both theology and law at university before turning his attentions to medicine. He was a very interesting and charismatic character and, although we recognise in his work the seeds of hypnosis, he didn’t actually develop the term hypnosis and misunderstood the hypnotic phenomena he undoubtedly evoked in his subjects. Mesmer based his therapeutic procedures on a completely different type of reasoning, derived from Newtonian physics, but we can say that he was definitely using hypnotic processes. Mesmer believed that all of us have an energy or life-force running through us that he called ‘animal magnetism’. He believed that problems, particularly psychological problems, developed if there was some blockage in this flow of energy which he likened very much to gravity. He developed techniques such as the laying on of hands and the making of ‘passes’ to direct this energy past particular blockages. He also believed in using magnetised instruments to re-direct this energy flow. Mesmer initially used magnetised rods but developed this idea further to believe that he could magnetise objects such as trees and other inanimate objects. Quite frequently he would do mass demonstrations, treating what was called at the time hysteria but which we would probably describe today as some form of severe anxiety problem. His demonstrations would often involve large numbers of people who would touch the object that had been ‘magnetised’ by Mesmer and would experience intense cathartic experiences during which they would wail, swoon, have seizures and exhibit all sorts of other dramatic behaviours. On other occasions the subjects would link hands and the ‘magnetic force’, introduced to one subject, would ‘travel’ from one subject to another like electricity passing along a cable. The remarkable thing is that although we now realise that the concept of ‘animal magnetism’ is false and that Mesmer’s subjects were almost certainly responding to the ‘demand characteristics’ of the situation, many of them nonetheless experienced authentic cures for their problems. Although Mesmer completely misunderstood the reasons for the phenomena he was provoking, he was almost certainly enabling his subjects to access states of trance and engage their own inner healing resources.

Mesmerism and ‘animal magnetism’ became a fashionable phenomena in many parts of Europe, not least of all due to the flamboyant and self-publicising nature of its founder. The attempts of Mesmer and some of his supporters to obtain official recognition for their methods led Louis XVI, in 1784, to set up a commission comprised of members of the French Faculty of Medicine and the Academy of Sciences. Their remit was to investigate the phenomena of Mesmerism and make findings upon it. Amongst the commission’s members were the American statesman and scientist, Benjamin Franklin; the distinguished chemist, Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier; and Joseph-Ignace Guillotin, the inventor of the instrument of death that bears his name. Unfortunately for Mesmerism the conclusions of the commission were damning and they reported that there was no such thing as animal magnetism. Whilst this finding in itself was quite correct the commission proceeded to throw the baby out with the bath water and failed to enquire with any sort of rigour as to what, if not some magnetic force, was producing the cures in Mesmer’s patients. This failure has been lamented by many, including the writer Robin Waterfield (2004, pp. 89 – 90), who commented:

“It is hard not to reproach the commission for short-sightedness. There were hundreds of testimonials of cures available to them… All right, they dismissed animal magnetism as nonsense; but something was causing the cures, and as scientists they should have looked into what it was: they might have appreciated the power of suggestion.”

Apart from their official report the commission also submitted a private report questioning the morality of Mesmerism. It is perhaps understandable that in the 1700s the prospect of usually male magnetisers making intimate ‘passes’ (physical movements of the arm and hands in close proximity to the body) over vulnerable women subjects, who then collapsed into spectacular paroxysms, should have appeared to have a strong sexual undercurrent. It was almost inevitable that tongues should have started wagging.

Following the commission’s report Mesmerism suffered a decline in credibility and, until Mesmer’s death from a stroke in 1815, the movement was primarily characterised by internal recrimination over points of doctrine and ownership of the intellectual property rights of Mesmerism. Although it had fallen from grace, however, Mesmerism did not die out completely and its influence continued in albeit a somewhat diminished form.

The next major figure in the history of hypnosis was John Elliotson (1791-1868). Elliotson was a highly respected London doctor who had helped found University College Hospital and was the author of a famous medical textbook of the day. Elliotson was also something of a medical pioneer and was one of the first doctors in London to use the newly invented stethoscope in his practice. Unfortunately, Elliotson was also an extremely prickly character who had a remarkable ability to fall out with people. Just as Mesmer’s flamboyance and high-handedness led to ad hominem attacks on Mesmerism, so Elliotson’s advocacy of hypnosis was vulnerable to criticism due to the cantankerous nature of its champion. Elliotson’s public demonstrations of Mesmerism, and his uncompromising defence of them, brought him into conflict with both hospital authorities and the recently founded medical journal, The Lancet. Like Mesmer, Elliotson also found himself on the receiving end of doubts expressed as to the sexual morality of his mesmeric practices. Disgusted by the response to his researches, Elliotson resigned from his positions with University College Hospital and the North London Hospital in 1838 and went into private practice. He later returned to the fray as founder of the journal Zoist, dedicated to advancing the cause of Mesmerism and through its pages engaged in running battles with his professional enemies.

At around the same time a Scottish surgeon by the name of James Esdaile (1808-1859) was obtaining remarkable results using mesmerism in medical practice in Calcutta in India. It is worth remembering that Esdaile was working before the advent of chemical anaesthetics, when the only relief from the agony of surgical procedures was alcohol. Even basic surgical procedures were a last resort and the patient was at risk from the trauma of pain, post-operative shock and problems associated with bleeding and infection. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that the mortality rate from surgical operations was approximately fifty per cent. Even those who survived were often psychologically shattered by their experiences. Esdaile experimented with the anaesthetic possibilities of Mesmerism and in 1846 he published a report on 345 operations carried out with Mesmerism as the sole anaesthetic. His conclusion was that Mesmerism had reduced the mortality rate from surgery from fifty per cent to five per cent. An official investigation into his claims was ordered. Esdaile was more fortunate than Mesmer and his findings were validated by the investigation. It would seem that with such spectacular results the stage was set for a resurgence in mesmeric practices. Unfortunately, this was not the case. Fast on the heels of Esdaile’s findings came the discovery of chemical anaesthetics (ether was introduced in 1846, chloroform in 1847) and the ease and simplicity of administering such agents catapulted them into popular medical usage. The alleged use of chloroform by Queen Victoria during childbirth in 1853 gave the new anaesthetics the appearance of Royal approval and Mesmerism faded from attention again.

The next significant figure was another Scottish doctor, James Braid (1795-1860), who trained in medicine at Edinburgh University. Braid, in the words of Robin Waterfield (2004, p.201):

“…laid the foundations for a sane and scientific study of hypnotism.”

Unfortunately, Braid’s efforts were hampered by the lingering suspicions surrounding the subject resulting from the personal excesses of Mesmer and Elliotson. It is interesting to note that Elliotson himself was not impressed by Braid who he described as “a most vain and swaggering mechanic”. The reasons for this hostility are obvious enough. Although Braid recognised that Mesmerism was producing remarkable results he believed that this had nothing whatsoever to do with animal magnetism or any actual substance being passed from the magnetiser to the subject. He dismissed such notions as red herrings and was also deeply sceptical of the idea that Mesmerised subjects possessed clairvoyant or telepathic powers.

Braid’s methods of inducing trance states were also original. Although he would occasionally use Mesmeric ‘passes’ simply to satisfy the expectations of his subjects, he also came to recognise that individuals could be placed in trance simply by being asked to focus their visual attention on a specific object for a period of time. He was also perhaps the first to realise the possibility of self-hypnosis by observing that fixation of visual attention could allow an individual to become entranced without the need for a hypnotic operator to be present. We now know that fixation of visual attention is not necessary to induce hypnosis, however many modern inductions still utilise eye fixation in their application and its use represented an important shift in attention away from the actions of the Mesmerist towards the experience of the subject.

Braid was also quite creative when it came to devising technical terminology. In 1843 he published a book on the subject entitled Neurypnology recounting many remarkable cures. He also coined the term ‘monoideism’ to reflect his view that hypnosis involved the restricting of thought processes to a single idea. Neither of these terms caught on, however, and it was Braid who eventually devised the term we are familiar with – hypnosis (devised from the Greek word ‘hypnos’, meaning sleep). Although his ideas were not recognised as a dramatic breakthrough at the time, his work has since come to be viewed as being of great importance in putting the study of hypnosis on a more scientific footing. Moreover, one of his final actions relating to his studies allowed the torch to effectively be passed back over the English Channel to France where it was accepted by figures who would also become important in the history of hypnosis. The action in question related to a paper that he wrote shortly before his death in 1860. His state of health prevented him delivering the paper himself and he asked that it be presented on his behalf to the French Academy of Sciences. In the audience at this presentation was a doctor by the name of Ambroise-Auguste Liébeault (1823-1904).

Liébeault was a country doctor from a village near Nancy and had descended from peasant stock. Simple though his background may have been, he was clearly of a perceptive and generous turn of mind and was intrigued by the possibilities suggested by Braid’s paper. Upon his return to his practice he experimented widely with hypnosis in the tranquil surroundings of his garden, where he would consult with his patients. Liébeault made many interesting observations including the fact that Braidian eye-fixation was not necessary and that suggestion was of great importance in the use of hypnosis. His success guaranteed him many patients from the local population, as did his policy of providing treatment free to those who could not afford it. After a number of years in practice Liébeault put his discoveries in writing, although, with sales of five copies in five years, the text could hardly be described as a runaway success (fingers crossed this book does a little better!). Nonetheless, word of Liébeault’s practice reached the attention of Hippolyte Bernheim, a professor of internal medicine at the University of Nancy. Bernheim (1837-1919) suspected that the simple country doctor was guilty of either gullibility or fraud and expected to have his suspicions confirmed. However, when Liébeault was successful in treating a sciatica patient that Bernheim had sent to him, the professor’s scepticism was dispelled. Thus began a professional collaboration between Bernheim and Liébeault that led to the development of the Nancy school of hypnosis, which emphasised suggestion as being of critical importance in the use of hypnosis. Also important in the historical context is that Bernheim experimented extensively on male subjects and this helped to dispel the notion that hypnosis was a feeble-minded, female susceptibility.

The Nancy school’s viewpoint was not the only perspective on offer, however, and heavyweight dissent to their views of hypnosis emerged from the medical establishment in Paris. This took the form of the distinguished neurologist, Jean Martin Charcot, head of the famous La Salpêtrière hospital in the French capital. Charcot (1825-93) had acquired remarkable status as perhaps the most esteemed medical scientist of his day and his work in neurology and nervous diseases was groundbreaking. It was Charcot who had coined the term Parkinson’s Disease, after reading the English physician, Parkinson’s, 1817 study of the affliction. He was also one of the first to study motor neurone disease, which is still referred to in many parts of Europe as Charcot’s Disease. To this day the term Charcot’s Foot is applied to a certain neurological condition in the lower limbs. It is little wonder that he acquired the nickname the ‘Napoleon of the Neuroses’, a moniker that he seems to have done little to disavow. La Salpêtrière was a vast, rambling hospital, crammed full of chronic cases of women suffering from all manner of psychological and neurological afflictions. It provided an ideal hunting ground for such a neurological pioneer; however Charcot’s personal standing and dominance within its walls may well have led to the erroneous conclusions he reached about hypnosis.

Charcot conducted regular demonstrations of hypnosis to professional and wealthy audiences using the inmates of La Salpêtrière as subjects. His views on the behaviours and hypnotic phenomena that could be expected were so well known that it is eminently possible that both the subjects, and Charcot’s assistants who prepared them, ensured that the expected phenomena were produced in order to satisfy their esteemed master. This would not necessarily have been an attempt at deliberate collusion or fraud. Rather, as has already been mentioned, ‘demand characteristics’ can be communicated in an extremely subtle way and enacted by subjects at an unconscious or scarcely conscious level. The result was that, instead of Charcot observing phenomena and drawing conclusions from them, his conclusions were already known and his subjects produced the phenomena to confirm them.

So what were the views that Charcot propagated? His main view that concerns us here is that hypnosis was closely linked to hysterical symptoms and that susceptibility to hypnosis was an indication of pathology – a sign of illness. This view is contrary to our modern understanding that hypnosis is a manifestation of a healthy mind and it inevitably brought Charcot into conflict with Bernheim, whose opinions were closer to our modern understandings. The friction between the Paris school, headed by Charcot, and Bernheim’s Nancy school simmered on for a number of years with the mounting evidence finally delivering the verdict in the favour of the Nancy theorists. In looking at the history of medicine we should be fair to Charcot. Although many of his conclusions about hypnosis were wide of the mark he was, nevertheless, a great pioneer of neurology who made significant contributions to the field. In terms of hypnosis, the very fact that he devoted time to its study helped it become more acceptable as a subject for scientific investigation.

This discussion of Charcot brings us neatly onto the next significant figure in the history of hypnosis, Sigmund Freud. Freud (1856-1939) is obviously extremely well known as the originator of psychoanalysis, which to many is still synonymous with the concept of psychotherapy. In his earlier career as a neurologist Freud won a grant to travel to Paris from Vienna to study with Charcot at La Salpêtrière. Charcot heavily influenced Freud’s subsequent work and he used hypnosis in some of the early investigations that evolved into psychoanalysis. Unfortunately for hypnosis, however, Freud discontinued its use in favour of the method of ‘free association’. There have been several reasons put forward to explain why this happened, some of them more plausible than others. At one end of the scale is the theory that Freud’s use of cocaine (of which he was a pioneering researcher) had damaged his gums to the extent that his false teeth did not fit properly. This, supposedly, prevented him speaking with sufficient fluency to induce trance (James, 2000, p.14). More probable, perhaps, are two other possible explanations.

The first of these is that a female patient made embarrassing advances towards Freud or a close colleague whilst she was in trance and that this unexpected event shocked and surprised him. The second, and perhaps most likely, is that Freud was hampered by the limited hypnotic induction methods available at the time. In Freud’s day inducing hypnosis was a long-winded process that occupied a considerable portion of a therapy session. Furthermore, there was a belief that hypnosis would only yield results if the subject was able to access a very deep level of trance, a level that is only reached by a certain percentage of any population. Nowadays we recognise that even light states of trance can facilitate powerful therapeutic work but ignorance of this fact led Freud to abandon hypnosis in favour of something he thought more reliable and reproducible. Whatever Freud’s reasons may have been, there is little doubt that hypnosis went into abeyance as psychoanalysis came to dominate the psychological landscape.

Even Freud’s best-known colleague and subsequent apostate discarded hypnosis due to a fundamental misunderstanding of its nature and potential. Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961) was regarded as the ‘Crown Prince’ of psychoanalysis and was expected to take the movement forward after Freud’s death. As Jung began to develop his own divergent views, however, the relationship crumbled and fell apart amidst much acrimony. Whereas Freud was rather aloof and standoffish in his dealings with clients, Jung’s greater warmth and empathy made him the more natural hypnotist. Unfortunately Jung also abandoned the use of hypnosis, erroneously believing that its only potential application was for directly implanting the hypnotist’s commands into the mind of the subject. Jung was interested in helping clients develop their own potential and resources, rather than imposing his will upon them and he mistakenly believed that hypnosis was incompatible with such an approach (Jung, 1964, p.45).

It is rather ironic that Dr Ernest Rossi, a hugely influential contemporary hypnotherapist who has pioneered client-centred applications of hypnotherapy, should originally have trained as a Jungian analyst before being drawn towards the use of hypnosis – a complete reversal of the path taken by Jung.

It is also interesting to note that, although both Freud and Jung believed they had abandoned hypnosis, this was not actually the case. Although they no longer used formal, overt hypnotic approaches, their preferred options (free-association and active-imagination, respectively) have all the features of hypnosis. As you will come to see the states of focused introspection facilitated by these approaches are clearly recognisable as covert, indirect forms of hypnosis. Despite what they believed they had done, Freud and Jung simply replaced one hypnotic approach with another. O’Connor and Seymour (2003, p.112) express this succinctly:

“Most of the work on trance and altered states has been done in a psychotherapy setting, for all therapies use trance to some extent. They all access unconscious resources in different ways. Anyone free-associating on an analyst’s couch is well into downtime [hypnotic trance], and so is someone who is role playing in Gestalt therapy. Hypnotherapy uses trance explicitly.”

Following the advent of psychoanalysis, hypnosis, under its own name and identity, faded into the background for a period of time, only really being resurrected during the First World War as a brief and effective treatment for war neuroses (also known as ‘shell-shock’ or by the more modern term Post-traumatic Stress Disorder). It was still studied and written about by individuals such as Clark Hull (1884-1952), a psychologist at Yale, but its resurrection into mainstream medical thought was largely brought about by the work of the American doctor and psychiatrist, Milton H. Erickson (1901-1980). Erickson’s contribution to hypnotherapy has been enormous and he was, almost without question, the most influential hypnotherapist of the 20^th century. Erickson’s immense reputation was established both as a result of his pioneering work in hypnosis and psychotherapy and also because of his own colourful and dramatic life. Born on a farm in Wisconsin, colourful is perhaps not actually the most appropriate word to use in discussing Erickson, as he suffered from colour-blindness. He was also tone deaf, dyslexic and suffered from two different strains of polio during his life. The first, when he was in his teens, almost killed him and he struggled hard to recover from the paralysis it caused. The second polio affliction occurred during later life and confined him to a wheelchair. It is interesting to note that Erickson’s early exposure to the subject of hypnosis included his attendance of lectures by Clark Hull who, like Erickson, had been crippled by polio. Erickson often used self-hypnosis to deal with the pain with which that second attack left him.

Erickson’s legacy in terms of hypnotherapy was immense and has inspired further generations of therapists and researchers. Erickson believed that we all access trance on many occasions in our life without recognising it and it is an innate ability that we all have. He believed that it is the responsibility of the therapist to find a way to facilitate a client’s trance experience, rather than expecting the client to simply comply with the therapist’s demands. He developed many innovative ways of inducing trance, including many ‘indirect’ approaches where a client could be eased into hypnosis without the word even being mentioned.

Erickson’s view of the unconscious mind was also a shift away from Freudian, psychoanalytical perspectives, which viewed the unconscious as the repository of unruly, destructive and undesirable elements of the psyche. Erickson viewed the unconscious as being a storehouse of forgotten wisdom, resources and experiences that could be enormously beneficial to the client in leading his or her life. He also developed an approach to therapy called ‘Utilisation’ which viewed the client’s presenting symptoms as containing the potential for their own resolution. Whatever behaviour a client displayed could be re-directed in a positive and beneficial way and, since the client’s experience was accepted and valued rather than opposed, the potential for resistance or power-struggles between therapist and client were greatly reduced. Erickson’s reputation as a therapeutic wizard (and also his personal longevity) attracted and influenced many contemporaries. Amongst the therapists profoundly influenced by Erickson’s work were Jay Haley, Stephen Gilligan, Jeffrey Zeig, Richard Bandler and John Grinder of NLP fame, Paul Watzlawick and the staff of the Mental Research Institute in Palo Alto, Gregory Bateson, William O’Hanlon, Michael Yapko, Steve and Carol Lankton and David Calof. Perhaps his best-known associate was Ernest Rossi who I have already mentioned. Rossi collaborated with Erickson over many years and worked together on many books elaborating and developing Erickson’s approach. Rossi was also appointed as Erickson’s literary executor.

Whilst it is important not to deify Erickson, it is probably true to say that the fields of hypnosis and psychotherapy would not be what they are today without his contribution.

Just as Charcot’s interest in hypnosis had rescued it from the status of sideshow quackery, so Erickson’s influence helped draw hypnosis back into the arena of serious scientific scrutiny. Apart from his work in hypnosis, Erickson was highly respected in conventional psychiatric circles and his championing of hypnosis helped give the subject scientific credibility. We should not assume from this, of course, that all was plain sailing. Erickson experienced a great deal of hostility from professional peers and medical bodies due to his work with hypnosis and attempts were even made to remove his licence to practice medicine. Nonetheless, the growing acceptance of hypnosis led to its investigation by official medical bodies and in 1955 the British Medical Association endorsed hypnosis as being a powerful therapeutic tool. The BMA was followed in 1958 by a similar verdict from the American Medical Association. It should be noted, however, that this was not the first time that hypnosis had been investigated by official medical bodies. In 1891 the BMA had set up a committee to investigate hypnosis. The committee had concluded that hypnosis was an authentic phenomenon with particular potential in the area of pain relief and somatic problems. When these comparatively positive findings were presented, the BMA merely ‘received’ their report rather than formally endorsing it. By 1955 it seems that things had moved on to the extent that the BMA were prepared to formally recognise the therapeutic use of hypnosis. Nowadays hypnosis is quite extensively used to augment or potentiate other therapeutic approaches across a wide range of medical disciplines.

The field of hypnosis and hypnotherapy research is not static, of course, and ongoing research is being conducted in a variety of academic and clinical settings worldwide. Many of these research programmes have developed from the work of individuals such as André Weitzenhoffer and Ernest Hilgard who established a hypnosis research laboratory at Stanford University in the United States. Although the laboratory has been closed for many years now, the research that emerged from it was pioneering and provocative. Perhaps their most famous offering was the Stanford Hypnotic Susceptibility Scales, which purported to rank hypnotic phenomena according to the depth of trance at which they would be expected to manifest. Although such scales (of which there are a number) are of limited use to the practicing therapist, they are still made use of in formal hypnosis research and are interesting to study.

I hope that this brief overview of the history of hypnosis will have been enlightening and will have helped the reader to place hypnosis in a historical perspective. It may also have explained why, in many minds, hypnosis is still mistakenly associated with rather bizarre and slightly sinister practices. Such associations are unjustified and I am confident that the rest of this book will further strip away the last vestiges of such prejudices. At least the reader will now have an appreciation of where the mystical and occult trappings originated from and will be more enthusiastic to move forward and discover a little more of what hypnosis is really about.

Of course, that’s just a suggestion!