History shows Hypnosis dating back to 3000 BC.

There are documents from the Ancient Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Indians, Chinese, Persians and Sumerians show extensive studies in Hypnosis. Hypnosis was considered as a cure for many physical and emotional ailments and disorders.

In the 9^th to 14^th centuries as a growing time for civilization in the Mediterranean and Middle East which laid the foundation of modern science as we know it; medical and philosophical knowledge from Ancient Greece, Egypt and early Easter civilizations was revitalized. Hypnosis was used to alleviate emotional distress and suffering.

In the 15^th and 16^th centuries physicians from many nations developed further and refined the concept of hypnosis and its uses. Even though this knowledge spread throughout the European continent and the British Isles.

It was again introduced in the 18^th century when Western explorers got in contact with the practice of hypnotism in the Middle East and the Far East.

The 18^thcentury was development of hypnosis by Dr Frantz Anton Mesmer an Austrian physician who was a charismatic and at times controversial personality. He worked in Austria, Switzerland and Germany before settling in France although he achieved many successes he was soon derided and ostracized by the medical community; it is generally though that his healing sessions held in front of the public and medical practitioners were such theatrical performances that the excessive showmanship led to his work being ridiculed.

After Mesmer’s death in 1815 one of his disciples, Armand de Puysegur carried on his work and took it one step further. He discovered that the spoken word and direct commands induced trance easily and noticeably faster than “mesmeric passes” and that a person could be operated upon without pain and anaesthesia when in trance. Many surgeons had recorded operations without anaesthesia but Dr Hames Esdaile an English physician had the record fir surgery under trance. He performed his first operation without anaesthetic in India and reached an incredible tally of 300 major operations and a thousand minor operations using hypnosis or mesmerism as it was still called at the time. After chloroform was discovered mesmerism dropped out as a use for anaesthetic. Chloroform was faster and would put the patient in a state of trance.

In 1841 Fr James Braid who discovered by accident that a person fixating an object could easily reach a trance state without the help of the mesmeric passes advocated by Fr Mesmer. By 1870’s two schools of hypnosis was created in France One was by Dr Jean-Martin Charcot, in Paris and the other one in Nancy by Dr Benheim and Dr Liebault.

Dr Enuke Ciue was another precursor of modern hypnosis and self development in the 19^th century was a believer in auto-suggestion and in the role of the hypnotist as a facilitator of changes/healing in the client’s condition by involving the total participation of the client in the hypnosis process.

Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, used hypnosis in his early work around the same period by soon became disillusioned by the concept. His work was damaging to hypnosis particularly in the context of physiology as it created enduring prejudices and misconceptions which have only started to go away in our time.

 

20^th century Russian scientists worked on the concept and mechanisms of hypnosis. The most illustrious one, Ivan P Pavlov who was know for his discover of the conditioned reflex, in spite of the fact he was awarded a Nobel prize in 1904 for his work on digestion. After World War 1, hypnosis and its therapeutic uses experienced a revival when psychiatrists realized that soldiers suffering traumas (paralysis and amnesia) of a psychological rather than physical origin, were responding well to hypnosis and were rapidly cured.

Hypnosis was officially approved as a tool in medicine by the British Medical Association in 1955, most of the furthering in therapeutic hypnosis in the 20^th century took place in the United States. In 1958 the American Medical Association recognized the therapeutic use of hypnosis.

Many therapists, researchers and scientists – too many to list who made significant contributions to hypnosis. It is widely believed that in the 20^th century the main two figures were Milton H. Erickson (1901-1980) and Dr William J Bryan JR (1924-1977).

William J Bryan JR was the first full time US medical practitioner of hypnosis and created the American Institute of Hypnosis.

1970’s Richard Brandler an information scientist and John Grindler a linguistic professor named it NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming).

In the last 3 to 4 decades of the last century we have witnessed an abundance of self-help and positive thinking therapies and methods, some of them openly using hypnosis, others more covertly.

The benefits of hypnotherapy are more and more recognized and for those who search for betterment of themselves and of their lives, hypnotherapy is available and very effective.