I want to share a story about something I was reading. I was reading a book Called “a critical history of hypnotism” by Rosenfeld. He goes through the long history of the different ways that hypnotism has been used and studied by different people.
Since the 1770’s we have been trying to understand hypnosis and “mesmerism”. That’s something to think about, when the United States was fighting the revolutionary war, at the same time, in Europe they were already trying to understand hypnosis.
…it is no wonder hypnosis has such a misunderstood reputation, given it’s long history.
What he describes in the book is that they used to believe that hypnosis was some kind of overload of the nervous system. They thought the hypnotist forced the person in to hypnosis by overwhelming their senses in some way. This led to several disturbing procedures where they would bang very loud gongs next to the client’s ears, and shine intense sunlight in their open eyes in the hopes of somehow overloading their system and taking them in to hypnosis. And even more, there was one account that when hypnosis was concluding, they needed to kick the patient in the genitals to bring them back out of hypnosis! They thought that somehow the pain of being kicked, slapped, and punched was needed to bring the hypnosis to an end.
Now one of the points of his book is that it is no wonder hypnosis has such a misunderstood reputation, given it’s long history.
And I think it’s also a good illustration of the contrast with the new thoughts on hypnosis. We now believe that hypnosis isn’t a thing that is done to you, it’s something you do for yourself. Everyone can do it, and the hypnotist is more like a coach, helping you get to that state of mind more quickly. I think that perception still exists, that hypnosis is a special power I have learned, and I’m going to cast a spell on my client or something. I view it more as I just coach my clients to get to that more relaxed and focused state of mind more quickly and more deeply. I’m the outside person encouraging them to allow themselves to focus on themselves.
