Hypnosis

History

Remote origins

One can recall the remote origins of the practice of hypnosis at the chamanic healers .
the Sumérien S (-4000) described on their shelves of the hypnotic methods.
It would seem that certain Egyptian low-reliefs describe “master keys” carried out by a “hypnotizer”. Energy would be coloured by crosses ansées therefore in direction of the patient. A papyrus found by Georg Ebers contains the sentence “Poses your hand on the pain and say that the pain from goes away”.
the old Greeks practiced a medicine by the dreams in the sanctuary of Épidaure (worship of Asclépios).
Jean François Billeter makes a bringing together between the texts of Tchouang-Tseu and hypnotic fright.

Animal magnetism

Animal magnetism with hypnosis

As showed it Bertrand Méheust, one can consider that hypnosis is a redécouverte practice of the hypnotizers by doctors, purified certain phenomena considered to be occult and as such unacceptable by the academy. The first to re-use the techniques of the animal Magnetism while wanting to dissociate hypnotizers is the Scottish doctor James Braid, which publishes in 1843 Neurypnologie, Traité of the nervous sleep or hypnotism . Into France, work of Braid is represented, in particular by Joseph Durand the Large one, Alfred Velpeau, Eugene Azam and Paul Broca. The French doctor Ambroise-Auguste Liébeault, which is interested since many years in magnetism, reads the publications of Crêpe and Azam and publishes in 1866 sleep and similar states considered especially from the point of view of the action of moral on the physique . It made there state of theoretical and practical notions largely close to those of the hypnotizers of the current " imaginationiste" the such abbot Jose Custodio da Faria, the doctor Alexandre Bertrand and the general François Joseph Noizet.

The golden age of hypnosis in France

The golden age of hypnosis in France, of 1882 to 1892, is marked by the polemics between the École of Salpêtrière of Jean-Martin Charcot and the École of Nancy of Hippolyte Bernheim. Jean-Martin Charcot starts to study hypnosis in 1878 pennies the influence of Charles Richet. In 1882, in its book On the various nervous states determined by the hypnotisation among hystericals , he rehabilitates hypnosis like subject of scientific study by presenting it like a somatic fact Pathologique suitable for hysteria. Hippolyte Bernheim, starts to be interested in hypnosis following its meeting with the doctor Liébeault in 1882 considers as for him hypnosis as a phenomenon of suggestion that it uses with a therapeutic aiming. Gradually, it is diverted formal hypnosis. For him, there is no hypnotism, it is only suggestibility . Among the large experts of this period, who will be at the same time influenced by work of Charcot and those of Bernheim, one counts in particular French Pierre Janet, the Belgian Joseph Delboeuf, Swiss the Auguste Forel and Eugen Bleuler, German Albert Moll, Leopold Löwenfeld and Albert von Schrenck-Notzing, the Austrian Richard von Kraft-Ebing, Russian Vladimir Bechterew, American James Baldwin, Boris Sidis and Morton Prince, Swedish Otto Wetterstrand and Dutch Frederik van Eeden.

Psychoanalyze and hypnosis

In 1885, Sigmund Freud profits from a purse of voyage of the medical college of Vienna and spends four months to Salpêtrière with Charcot. In 1886, taking as a starting point the work of its Parisian Master, it gives a conference to Vienna on male hysteria and, in 1887, it becomes itself expert of hypnosis. In 1889, Freud goes to Nancy with its patient Anna von Lieben to meet Liébeault and Bernheim, of which it translated into German the book Of the suggestion & its applications to therapeutic the . This same year, it decides to apply the method of Janet which managed to cure patients of their symptoms by finding and désuggérant under hypnosis various traumatic memories of their childhood. As of the autumn 1892, Freud gradually forsakes hypnosis itself with the profit of the " concentration" with the waking state and especially of the " Druckprozedur" consisting in pressing on the face of the patients and asking them to evoke an idea or an image. This technique, that Freud had inherited Bernheim remained technique of a hypnotic type which had in particular been used by the Danish hypnotizer Carl Hansen. Freud romp with hypnosis with the beginning of the year 1895. In 1917, at the time of the dixneuvième conference of introduction to the psychoanalysis, he declares: I am in right to say that the psychoanalysis itself dates only from the day when one gave up having recourse to hypnosis .

Hypnosis was at the base many major psychoanalytical concepts (unconscious, transfer, etc). The absence of neutrality of the therapeutist, the possibility of the Lie under hypnosis, led Freud to give up hypnosis at the time of the psychoanalytical Cure. The position of analyzing, lengthened on a sofa, the therapeutist sitting behind him, comes from the way in which Freud led its meetings of hypnosis.

In spite of the interdict freudien, many psychoanalysts continued to be interested in hypnosis and to practice it. Among the latter, one can mention in particular Sandor Ferenczi, Lawrence Kubie, Leon Chertok or François Roustang. The relationship between hypnosis and psychoanalysis also was studied by philosophers such Isabelle Stengers, Michel Henry and Mikkel Borch-Jacobsen.

Psychology and hypnosis

The German father of the scientific Psychology, Wilhelm Wundt got busy to condemn the practice of hypnosis in Hypnotisme and suggestion , published in 1892, by declaring that according to him “hypnotism and Occultisme are closely dependant”. In this book, he also declares which “the annoying continuations that after it the practice of hypnosis leaves express in the diminution of nervous and moral resistance”. Like Bernheim, Wundt brings back hypnosis to the suggestion, which is, according to him, “the main cause, if not single, of the hypnotic states”.

Milton H. Erickson

A modern form of hypnosis is resulting from work of Milton Erickson (1901-1980), American Psychiatre, which passed all its life to study hypnosis and its use in psychotherapy.

According to its partisans, its discoveries revolutionized the modern vision of the hypnosis which is very distant from what one believed at the beginning of the 20th century. The Hypnose ericksonienne rehabilitates after so many others (Leon Chertok, Caycedo, etc) the hypnosis given up by Freud. Like the traditional forms of hypnosis, though with particular methodological difficulties, it allows scientific research, in particular with the assistance of the recent evolutions in Medical imagery (IRMf and PetScan), which could show that hypnosis is well a specific state.

In years 1980 of new therapeutic practices using hypnosis are born, of which the Programmation neuro-linguistics (PNL) and short therapies, inspired partly of work of Milton Erickson. Thus, each school tends to particularize then to deploy such aspect of the complex practice of Erickson. According to the partisans of the PNL, for example, the access facilitated to unconscious makes it possible to better include/understand the operation of the Esprit and opens prospects Thérapeutique S news. Hypnosis éricksonnienne experiences an increasingly significant development in France. And it is perhaps not a chance if it is in this country even (after being worked by Mesmer, Puységur, Charcot, etc) which it finds a dash and a fertile creativity (cf François Roustang), at the same time open to the innovations (PNL, short therapy, TCC, etc) and refusing to let reduce its practice to the courageous ones but pathetic theoretical or technical reductions. In that, it remains faithful to the position of Erickson which refused to make theory.

For several years of many schools in France have proposed formations with therapeutic or medical hypnosis, in particular various institutes Milton Erickson. Psychologists, Doctor S, Psychothérapeute S are formed with the hypnosis which thus gradually makes its entry in the hospitals, as with the Hospital of Seclin or with the Hôpital of instruction of the armies Percy (Clamart). With the CHU of Liege (Belgium), hypnosis is used to make operations of Chirurgie without recourse to a general Anesthésie. However, this practice, like other therapeutic techniques, is framed of no legislation. Also it is important to get information about professional competences of the therapeutist who proposes it (place and duration of formation in particular).

Hypnosis like state of consciousness

As for all that relates to the human experiment subjective, there does not exist any theory uniformly allowed of the hypnotic phenomena. The practice of hypnosis, like writes it the psychiatrist and large specialist in hypnosis Leon Chertok, proclamation the instability of the hypnotic phenomenon, its subjectivity, the inconstancy of its results, according to the subject, its experiment and its sensitivity, the difficulty of the control of the relation hypnotist-hypnotized and, from a purely scientific point of view, the absence of objective criteria of validation.

Hypnosis is often regarded as a modified state of conscience. This state is different from other modified states of conscience such relieving or the Méditation. This state can be light (daydream, Transe hypnotic light, hypnagogic or hypnogogic), hypnopompic or deeper.

Some consider that hypnosis is different from the other modified states of conscience by the Dissociation between the Conscient and the Inconscient. This dissociation makes it possible unconscious to be released from the obstacles and blockings from conscious and to appear in an autonomous way by hypnotic phenomena such as the Catalepsie, the Amnésie, the Hypermnésie, the Anesthésie, or the regression in age. It is the presence of this operation dissociated from unconscious which would make it possible to characterize the state of hypnosis.

Milton Erickson defines also hypnosis as a state of hyper concentration.

Techniques of hypnotic induction

August 1st THERE exist tens of techniques of induction. There are no good or bad techniques, simply of the solutions adapted to the psychology of the person to hypnotize. Sometimes it will be necessary to use a a little directing method, or an action progressive, oneiric, will be adapted better. In fact it is judicious to use the " vérités" physiological human to induce hypnosis. An example; breathing: " your breathing is peaceful, you observe his rate/rhythm which slows down, deepens as you slacken profondement" more and more;. This proposal does nothing but describe one true fact physiological and the person can only believe in the truth of what occurs. She becomes thus co-operating and quickly enters in hypnosis. The therapeutist must be attentive with the signs which appear at the time of this phase. Palpitement of the eyelids for example, or more frequent swallowing belong to these signs. It is then advisable to include this in the induction." Your eyelid palpitate, you feel the more frequent need to swallow your saliva, here signs which show that, quickly, you will enter in hypnose." More generally, it is appropriate of " surprendre" the analytical and rational spirit in order to gradually reduce resistances which it can oppose. One call this " techniques of confusion" , example; one asks a person to think of his right foot, then very quickly with his left hand, very quickly still with the color of the eyes of his/her father etc… His coherent spirit is then quickly overloaded and prefers to take refuge in the relaxation that one proposes to him in addition. The relation with the therapeutist is paramount. That Ci owes " suivre" its or its patient with more the great attention. It is necessary to know by the preliminary dialog all the preferences, and the rejections of the person in order to use these elements during induction and during all the meeting of hypnosis. It is useful to repeat here, that the hypnotist must be a person knowing very well human psychology and be trained lengthily with hypnosis.

Hypnosis and Anesthesiology

August 1st It is in the Anglo-Saxon world that one finds the precursors of the use of hypnosis (then still called animal Magnétisme) in anesthesia. One will note work of the doctors John Elliotson ( Surgical operations in the mesmeric state without bread - 1843) and James Esdaile ( Mesmerism in India and its practical applications in surgery and medicine - 1846) and of the doctor James Braid ( Hypnose or Treated nervous sleep, considered in its relationships to animal magnetism - 1883).

In France, the doctors Eugene Azam and Paul Broca return account in front of the Academy of Science of an intervention practiced under hypnotic anesthesia in 1859. In 1860, the surgeon Alfred Velpeau presents work of Braid to the Academy of Science.

Hypnosis can be useful in Médecine to supplement, to even replace the Anesthésie by Sédatif S.

Hypnosis and Psychotherapy

August 1st

Many techniques of modern Psychothérapie rise from hypnosis, the term Psychothérapie was created in 1891 by Hippolyte Bernheim to indicate his practice of medical hypnosis. In 1923, Pierre Janet declared: the decline of hypnotism is only one temporary accident in the history of psychotherapy .

For example, the Sophrology, as well as certain techniques of relieving, is a recent method (1961) born from hypnosis.

Hypnosis as such is not used for nothing, it is a tool. The current indications are especially Psychologique S and Psychosomatique S: Anguish S, Neurosis, stop of the Tobacco, weight loss, Stress, enuresis, Insomnia, Phobia S, Allergy S, Traumatism S, Mourning S, fakes (turbid obsessional compulsifs), timidity etc but also, hypnotic anesthesia, mental preparation (Surgery, Sport, examination), resolution of conflict, Training S, personal development, etc

One finds it in Psychologie or in certain forms of Apprentissage.

Some use it in Psychothérapie short since its principal interest is to give access to the Inconscient. According to these experts, hypnosis is regarded as an amplifier and an accelerator of therapy. It would be a means of reaching the Inconscient, of circumventing blockings and of allowing the formation of new more positive Comportement S for the life of the prone .

Hypnosis and Science

Today, although one can easily induce a hypnotic state, the Science cannot still explain what is hypnosis. The least which one can say on the other hand is that the study of hypnosis (and more largely of the modified states of the conscience) opens new tracks for the comprehension of the human spirit, and more largely redesigns our vision of this one. Many attempts at reduction (cf Isabelle Stengers) of hypnosis to another thing (“it is only… suggestion”; “it is only… one roleplay”; etc) were proposed but without managing to give an account of the phenomenon satisfactorily. One has been able nevertheless to note for these ten last years, with the projection in neurology (inter alia IRM), that the study on hypnosis has advanced, just like on the sleep, which kept good number of its mysteries. One could make bringings together on the level of certain cerebral activities on a subject in a state of hypnosis and note the various areas in activity compared to various activities during various phases of sleep. One could discover that the sleep proposes (approximately) 3 phases per 2 hours cycle:

drowsiness (lasted 30 minutes~)
the dream (lasted 30 seconds to one minute) one notes a wave known as alpha which resembles that of a hypnotized subject. Thanks to the IRM one notes that the active cerebral areas are with few things close identical.
the heavy sleep (duration 1:30 ~)

It is noted that during hypnosis the zone corresponding to the analytical direction criticism remains active, but faded by the cerebral zone of the dream and the imagination which dominates it.

Normally, an order which goes against the ethics (morals) of the hypnotized person is rejected, ignored or causes (in certain cases observed) an alarm clock and a loss of fright. However, one could observe that a credible suggestion, made so that the analytical direction does not perceive it like opposite with the ethical code (with the moral direction or of values), was not inevitably rejected.

Example of two made suggestions in a different way:

You are in a sauna, it makes very hot, increasingly hot… very, very heat, so hot which you remove some clothing. (Here the subject knows why it removes them and the vague word " some vêtements" he will make it possible to remove clothing which it wishes without shocking it. According to the subjects, they will be the socks, the shirt, etc)
You are in a sauna, it makes very hot, increasingly hot… very, very heat, so hot which you remove your bra (Here, in all the case, the suggestion is a failure, because the order is opposed to the moral and ethical direction values).

In this 2nd case, the order is not with the profit of the subject, and in its fright it realizes there. When one chokes oneself by compressing his rib cage in sleep, an alarm bell causes the alarm clock. In the same way, a hypnotized subject has this same " bell of alarme" he allowing the alarm clock and the exit of fright in the event of danger.

The studies of neurosciences have started for a few years to be interested in hypnosis. Some showed that in hypnotic fright, the cerebral activity is different from the waking state and the sleep. For example, known as “you Recall a pleasant memory in your childhood” on an waked up subject, the functions of association and of abstraction activate themselves naturally in the Cerveau. Said this same sentence to a person in hypnosis, and immediately the driving, sensory and ocular functions are activated in its brain.

In 1998, a French scientific team proved the existence of a physiological state suitable for hypnosis. The images taken by Tomographie by emission of positron (Mtoe) show a real difference in at least four zones of the brain, compared to the ordinary waking state, that of waked up daydream or even of visualization:

the occipital visual cortex extratrié
the lower parietal lobule
the cortex adjacent premotor and précentral
the cortex préfrontal ventrolatéral

Lastly, the précunéus, being used for the mental imagery, is completely decontaminated and the électrooculogramme reveals movements of the eyes impossible to simulate with the ordinary waking state. The cerebral zones activated during hypnosis are mainly located in the left hemisphere, which corresponds to a process of rebuilding of mental images, then of actuation and of maintains of these images. The fact that the précunéus (imagination) is decontaminated during hypnosis and that, however, the person lives a very sharp interior experiment in images, in thoughts and in emotions, tends to prove the hypnotic access so that the psychologists call the unconscious one.

In a general way, let us say all the same that hypnosis is before a a whole approach aiming at inducing a modified state of conscience at an individual. This " modified state of conscience" , with the limits that this manner of describing the things comprises, can take multiple forms which vary according to the beliefs and waitings as well of the hypnotist as of hypnotized and of the context which surrounds them. The limits of the observation depend on the same factors: thus, if the hypnotist does not believe that a levitation of the hand is possible in hypnosis, this one in few chances to occur.

To isolate hypnosis at a person as a phenomenon in oneself which can be observable independently of the observer and observed (as of the context which surrounds them) is like isolating the state in love at a person to study it! One can observe the effects of the state in love (is this a " état" or a " relation" ?) but to say that the love comes from that…

Hypnosis and Social sciences

Work shows especially that hypnosis pushes science with its own limits: because when it is a question of studying “what is really hypnosis”, it is observed especially that the person in hypnosis conforms to implicit waitings of the experimenter. Thus, the experimenter never observes T it more than what it expected to observe. And this skew is currently irreducible. Then would hypnosis be only one roleplay? It is obviously not so simple, because there are well a specific operation of the brain, a facilitation of the answers to the suggestions, etc

Some of the most fertile analyzes currently come us from the constructivism (e.g. Thierry Nickel silver). Thus, hypnosis returns us out of mirror, that in social sciences reality is not included/understood, it is built. And the language plays an important role there. Thus, if a chair is described, description will have a minimal effect on the chair, but will have an effect on the other hand on the Perception of the chair, as on the perception of the people who listen.

In hypnosis, the reaction to description is amplified: the language (verbal and not-verbal) of the experimenter do not describe simply what it observes: it describe-builds the behaviors which it observes, and its construction has a major effect on the attitude of the person observed. Nickel silver names our concepts of the " thus; créalités" because our reality is an articulation of these constructions.

Hypnosis also returns us in echo the limits of our representation of the human conscience. Thus, to say hypnosis which it is a modified state of conscience does not say anything in particular, except that it is a " état" (opposable thus with another), " modifié" (report/ratio with a " état" who would be that basic: day before?), " of conscience" (what conscience?)… Our prospect for the conscience in " états" is itself a criticizable construction. The state of consciousness, if one wants to name it like that, fluctuates all the day and one passes by many modified states of conscience. Thus, to describe these fluctuations compared to a basic state is a reference mark which helps to think, still is necessary it not too much to believe in it. It is a little like saying that the " level of the mer" is of… whereas this one is animated waves in a constant way. Level 0 of the sea is a theoretical and nonreal reference mark.

Other work in Sociology (e.g Bertrand Méheust), in Ethnology, Linguistic, psychology contributes in a very interesting way to comprehension of the " conscience" and of its " states modifiés". This work converges towards a necessary recasting of our report/ratio to the knowledge…

Hypnosis and Memory

It is advisable to distinguish two aspect in this chapter. Is hypnosis it a means of finding hidden memories and hypnosis can it make it possible to forget? With the first question it seems to me to be able to answer yes, under certain condition. If I ask a person should in the part of to side in bring back two of them, its initial reaction will be to require " two what? ". It is the same for hypnosis, to yes seek memories, but which. A technique used and called " bridge of affect" allows to find the moment or an emotion appeared for the first time during a life. Then yes, in this case, hypnosis makes it possible to go back to sometimes remote and hidden memories. Now let us approach the second aspect; does hypnosis make it possible to forget? Not, all that we live registers inevitably in our memory and it is impossible to erase anything there. One can however transform a painful memory to see invalidating, to remember it neutral; this is called abréaction. Certain techniques make it possible to live again of the painful moments and the " éteindre" by hypnosis. Another possibility, used sometimes at meetings of reinforcement of ego is to make it possible (by direct inductions) the memory to better organize itself; example: " And in the favourable state or you to be, your unconscious spirit can listen to the proposal which I make now, your memory in order to be useful to you as well as possible is organized differently to retain what to wish you to retain without effort, to give access to you easily the memories which are most useful for you….". These direct inductions used judiciously have an action in rem in the daily life of the people.

notice of a Net surfer: it is possible, not to make forget, but rather to prevent with the conscience from reaching certain information such as figures, its name, its age and much more still for a more or less long period. There that known as it acts primarily of hypnosis known as " of spectacle" but with regard to the more complex memories, in charge of emotions, it is about another history.

Hypnosis of Spectacle

August 1st Although often décriée by the medical community, the hypnosis of spectacle played a big role in the history of hypnosis. It is known in particular that it is after having assisted with a demonstration of the public hypnotizer Charles Lafontaine into 1841 that James Braid started to be interested in the hypnotic phenomena. One also knows that Sigmund Freud had been durably impressed, being young, by the public hypnotizer Danish Carl Hansen. Joseph Delboeuf, as for him, which made experiments with the public hypnotizer Alfred D' Hont, said Donato, is made lawyer of the hypnotizers of spectacle and request that each one can make public or private hypnotism, under its own responsibility .

Quotations

Hypnosis is not a capacity, hypnosis is a knowledge! Raphaël Chercheve
Hypnosis, it is a relation full with life which takes place in a person and who is caused by the heat of another person. Milton Erickson
Hypnosis offers so much to the patient than with the therapeutist an easy access to the unconscious spirit of the patient. She makes it possible to deal directly with these unconscious forces which are subjacent with the disturbances of the personality, and she authorizes the identification of these elements of the experiment of life of an individual which have importance for the personality and to which one must give all the necessary attention if one wishes to obtain therapeutic results. Only hypnosis can give an access easy, fast and broad to unconscious, unconscious that the history of psychotherapy showed to be of such an importance in the treatment of the acute disorders of the personality. Milton Erickson
It is a State of reduction of vigilance, having sometimes the appearance of the sleep, started by suggestion at a subject. This technique calls upon the fascination of the glance or a fixed object which removes all the foreign feelings and perceptions. Jacques Lacan

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