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To Sociedad de Hipnoterapia
Clínica.
We can trace the importance of belief in
healing right back to primitive cultures. Since early history priests and
witch doctors have attempted to bring about healing by inducing an altered
state of consciousness. This was often facilitated by rhythmic drum beats
or chanting, dancing and drugs, superimposed upon an elaborate
ritual.
When man was searching for an explanation
for the inconsistencies of life he believed disease to be a Divine
manifestation. The Ancient Egyptians had their Temples of Sleep, and the
Greeks their Shrines of Healing, where patients were given curative
suggestion whilst in an induced sleep.
Hippocrates (430 BC) was aware of the
importance of harmony between mind and body, and described the mind as the
‘seat of emotion’. It is possible to ascribe to hypnosis many miracles
described in the Bible, and later to the miracles and cures ascribed to
holy men, relics and shrines.
Between the times of the Romans and the
sixteenth century medicine was based largely upon folklore and remedies
having little scientific basis.
As dissection was frowned upon it was not
possible, except in a few notable cases (eg Leonardo da Vinci circa 1500),
to study detailed internal anatomy until well into the sixteenth century.
Although Galen (170 AD) had described a
circulatory system it was not until 1628 that Harvey published his work on
the heart and the circulation of blood.
Chemical anaesthesia did not appear on
the scene until the mid-nineteenth century. Prior to this alcohol and
opium had been used, but surgery had been brutal and, of necessity,
carried out at high speed. ( a British surgeon, William Cheseldon, is
reported to have removed a stone from the bladder in 54 seconds !) The
work of James Esdaile (see later) should be viewed in this context. In
addition to physical trauma and shock, post operative infection almost
invariably followed surgery and accounted for a huge mortality rate. Again
we should view Esdaile’s extremely high recovery rate in this context, and
bear in mind the fact that it was not until well into the nineteenth
century that surgical asepsis became recognized as being fundamentally
important.
Paracelsus elaborated the theory that the
heavenly bodies exerted an influence upon disease and healing, working
through an all pervading universal magnetic fluid.
Franz Anton Mesmer, a Viennese doctor,
stated that man could influence this magnetic fluid to bring about
healing, and he established salons where patients applied magnets to
afflicted parts of their body. Later he moved to Paris where he further
developed his theory. It was thought that a convulsive crisis was
necessary for a cure to take place.
Louis XV1 set up a commission of
investigation, which included Benjamin Franklin, M. La Guillotin, and La
Voisier. Their conclusion was that magnetism with imagination produced a
convulsive crisis, but magnetism alone did not. Mesmer was discredited,
but his Society of Harmonies continued.
Le Marquis de Puysegur, a member of the
Society, found that a crisis was not necessary. He believed that the
magnetic power was produced in his own mind and was transferred to the
patient via his fingertips. He found that he could produce a sleep in
which the patient would follow his commands - very authoritarian - and
introduced the terms, “perfect crisis” and “profound
sleep”.
John Elliotson, Professor of Medicine at
UCH, London, organised public clinical demonstrations of a wide range of
hypnotic phenomena, exhibiting effects on voluntary and involuntary
muscle, analgaesia, somnambulism, hallucinations etc., which he attributed
to the magnetism theory. On his forced resignation he edited a journal,
The Zoist, in which he reported the work of...
James Esdaile, a Scottish surgeon working
in India, who had performed several hundred operations quite painlessly
using hypnosis (mesmerism) alone as an anaesthetic. He or an assistant
would produce a state akin to suspended animation, now known as the
Esdaile State, by stroking the patient’s body for several hours. He
recorded that fatal surgical shock or post operative infection occurred in
only 5% of cases compared with the then norm of 50%.
The British medical establishment
rejected these claims.
James Braid, a Manchester doctor, saw a
demonstration of mesmerism by a frenchman La Fontaine, and applied the
methods within his practice. He found that patients having gazed at his
bright lancet case would enter a profound sleep, and in this state would
accept his suggestions aimed at cure. He assumed that staring at a bright
object exhausted the nervous system, and that the phenomenon was not to do
with magnetism. His treatise coined the word Neurypnology (literally
‘nervous sleep’), from Hypnos, the Greek god of sleep. This was the first
use of the word hypnosis.
In Nancy, France, Dr. Ambroise-August
Liebeault, found that he could bring about cures in this state simply by
suggestion.
He was joined by Professor Bernheim, from
Paris, and together they published ‘De La Suggestion’ in which they
rejected the concept of magnetism. They established the Nancy School, and
set up the Animalist Movement.
Around this same time Jean Martin Charcot
was demonstrating his views at the Salpetriere Hospital that hypnosis was
a pathological state akin to hysteria, the two phenomena being
interchangeable. Following conflict between the two schools, Bernheim’s
view was accepted and Charcot discredited. However, two of Charcot’s
pupils were to have a huge impact on psychological
medicine.
1890
Josef Breuer and Sigmund Freud developed
the application of hypnosis beyond the mere suggesting away of symptoms,
and changed the approach to the elimination of their apparent cause.
Breuer found that in hypnosis patients would often recall past events and
in talking about them would experience an emotional outpouring,
subsequently losing their symptoms. This he called his talking cure, (we
would now refer to this emotional state as an abreaction). Freud was also
looking at the dynamics and history of illness, but after earlier work
with Breuer he left hypnosis in favour of his work in what was later give
rise to psychoanalysis.
During the Great war the Germans realised
that hypnosis was of value in the immediate treatment of shell-shock,
allowing soldiers to be returned rapidly to the trenches. A formularised
version of hypnosis, autogenic training, was devised by a German, Dr.
Schultz.
After the second world war the work of
Milton Erickson in the U.S.A. was to have an enormous influence on the
practice and understanding of hypnosis and mental processing. He
recognised that hypnosis is a state of mind that all of us are entering
spontaneously and frequently as part of our normal behaviour pattern. He
utilised this phenomenon in conveying his suggestions in a covert way, by
an exciting and innovative use of language.
Following Erickson, Richard Bandler and
John Grinder, amongst others, have studied and codified his subtle
techniques in the development of neurolinguisic programming, ( N.L.P. )
which currently has a very high profile not only within medicine, but also
within business organisations and industry.
Dave Elman discovers regression to cause in using hypnosis
to go to the root of a persons problem in what was termed hypnoanalysis.
He uses his hypnosis technique for natural trance ansitesa with
suggestions for rapid recovery. He trains thousands of doctors from
all over the world in these techniques. He is the creator of the rapid
induction. His own Elman induction is still one of the most
virsitale inductions in use today. Mr. Elman was also responsible for a
wonderful deeping technique known as fractionation. With this technique
the mind feels as though it has been through multiable hypnosis sessions
in just a short time. This makes deepening to very deep levels of
somnambulism much easer.
Ormand McGill Ph.D., what can be said about a man who has
published over 30 books on the subject of hypnosis and has for many years
traveled the world studying healing techniques with many different
cultures and then bringing them back to the US and teaching them to us. He
has made many major contributions to field of hypnotherapy and
hypnosis.
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