What Is Hypnosis?

What is Hypnosis? Psychological and physical aspects of hypnosis. Discuss the role of relaxation in Hypnotherapy.

Before a definition of hypnosis is given, I would like to assign some lines to what general public thinks that hypnosis is, or what is the first thing that the word hypnosis brings up to their minds.

Words like "fear", "crazy", "scary" and "sleep" were the most commonly used when asked around families, friends and colleagues. Phrases like "Feel uncontrolled", "to be forced to do unwilling things"... were also stated by other people. Only few showed a more positive approach by using words like "exciting", "healing", "therapy" and "help". It is not a surprise the outcomes of my questioning, it only reflects how most of the population has received information about Hypnosis, which is by television show programs, where the whole intention of these kind of settings is to entertain the public.

There is various ways to give a definition of Hypnosis. Dr. F.L. Marcuse defines Hypnosis as "an altered stated of the organism originally and usually produced by a repetition of stimuli in which suggestion (mo matter how defined) is more effective than usual". The American Psychological Association describes hypnosis as "a cooperative interaction in which the participant responds to the suggestions of the hypnotist". And Dr. Bryan Weiss states that "Hypnosis is a state of focused concentration, of the sort many of us experience every day".

Most of us have entered in a hypnotic state every day, for example when driving a car for few miles and arriving home without realizing how we got there, or when after reading few pages of a novel then we realized that we don't know the content of these pages, etc...

What hypnosis tries to achieve is to reach the subconscious in a deeper level but leaving your conscious mind always aware of what is happening. However, during hypnosis the subconscious is playing a more dominant role.

The use of hypnosis has been around us since ancient times, it was just known with different terms than hypnosis. In nineteenth century A.D. few votive tablets, dated around the 4th century, were discovered underground in Greece. These stones narrated the cures, and the thanks given to the Gods for such cures, as they believed that they were the divine intervention. That century it was the era of Aesculapius, God of medicine and healing in ancient Greek. Early records show that around that time some sort of hypnosis state was used in order to treat some disease.

Also, in Egypt, in ancient times, is known the Egyptian Sleep Temples, were mainly psychological illnesses were treated, in conjunction with other rituals characteristics of that time, by chanting, putting the patient into a hypnotic state-like and analysing their dreams.

The word Hypnosis, as we know it now days, was coined in nineteenth century by an English doctor called James Braid (1795 - 1860), who used the Greek word Hypnos, which means "sleep", term that he tried to change years later after realizing the inadequate link between hypnosis and sleep, but he didn't succeed. It is confusing since during the process of hypnosis the words "sleep" and "awake" are used frequently, even thought it meant differently.

An earlier word for Hypnosis was mesmerism, derived of course from Franz Anton Mesmer, an Austrian physician born in 1734, who introduced, during the eighteenth century, the hypnotic suggestion into modern medical history. Around 1770s Mesmer spoke of animal magnetism, of universal fluids, the influence of planets in human body, of the magnetization of materials like wood, metal and water. These interests about magnetism came as a result of the influence of a Jesuit priest called Maximilian Heil. This was a time were new discoveries were taking place in the fields of magnetism, astrology and electrochemistry. In 1774 Mesmer practiced all his theories on his first patient, Franziska Osterlin, which was a success. He began treating more people and even groups, among which he accomplished many successes. However, these successes, using such an orthodox procedure, were debateable in the eyes of other medical bodies of the time. After 1777, Mesmer leaves Austria for France, probably as a result of an unfortunate outcome with one his patients, a blind young woman musician, who after restoring her sight with Mesmer's treatment lost her ability to play the piano again.

A committee of the French governments were sent to investigate Mesmer's practice, which stated that even though he actually did obtain such cures the reasons may not been his procedure, but merely due to the individual's imagination. One of Mesmer's techniques was to magnetize trees and then ask the patient to touch them, where a convulsion produced by the magnetism of the tree, unblocks the fluids in the patient's body, obtaining a cure as result. However, the French Committee stated that some patients had touched the wrong tree, it is a tree which wasn't magnetized, and they had claimed to be cured.

After that, in 1785, Mesmer's reputation was damaged and he was forced to leave his practice.

Mesmerism was so discredited by the Royal French Committee that when Dr. John Elliotson, the founder of University College Hospital in London, began to experiment and practice with Mesmer's techniques in 1838 provoked a big disagreement among medical circles. Thomas Wakely, editor of the Lancet, found errors in Elliotson practice and he was forced to stop practising Mesmerism at the University Hospital. Despite this, Elliotson continued his interest in Mesmerism and attracted the interest of other medical bodies. He managed to establish a mesmeric hospital in London.

Around the same time, surgeon James Braid started exploring the use of Mesmerism. Braid was very successful in the introduction of his innovation in hypnotic suggestion. He developed the eye fixation induction procedure, which was named hypnosis. In later years Braid was astonished to discover that a blind person could be hypnotized by verbal suggestion.

In the mean while in India, Dr. James Esdaile, a Scottish surgeon, after reading Elliotson and Braid's works, started experimenting with their techniques, mainly as a substituted of anaesthesia. He was able to perform more than 200 major operations quite painlessly on patients. The British medical journals didn't take in consideration his success and refused to publish his