Hypnosis 
Some background On Hypnosis
Franz Anton Mesmer (May 23, 1734 – March 5, 1815), born Friedrich Anton Mesmer, was a German physician and astrologist, who invented what he called magnétisme animal (animal magnetism) and other spiritual forces often grouped together as mesmerism. The evolution of Mesmer's ideas and practices led Scottish surgeon James Braid to develop hypnosis in 1842. Mesmer's name is the root of the English verb "mesmerize".
James Braid (19 June 1795-25 March 1860) was born Kinross, Scotland. A Scottish physician and surgeon, specialising in eye and muscular conditions,Braid was a highly skilled and very successful surgeon, educated at Edinburgh University, and a Member of the Royal College of Surgeons (M.R.C.S.).
"[and] though he was best known in the medical world for his theory and practice of hypnotism, he had also obtained wonderfully successful results by operation in cases of club foot and other deformities, which brought him patients from all over. Up to 1841 he had operated on 262 cases of talipes, 700 cases of strabismus, and 23 cases of spinal curvature."
Braid was an important and influential pioneer of hypnotism and hypnotherapy. Braid adopted the term "hypnotism" as an abbreviation for "neuro-hypnotism" or nervous sleep (that is, sleep of the nerves). Braid is regarded by many as the first genuine "hypnotherapist" and the "Father of Modern Hypnotism".
Braid became interested in the phenomenon known as mesmerism in November 1841. He began experimenting with his own method, and soon after wrote a report entitled "Practical Essay on the Curative Agency of Neuro-Hypnotism".
He quickly dismissed the erroneous theories of the time that Mesmeric trances were due to some form of magnetism.
In his first publication, he had also stressed the importance of the subject concentrating both vision and thought, referring to "the continued fixation of the mental and visual eye" as a means of engaging a natural physiological mechanism that was already hard-wired into each human being:
At first his technique was to hold a small bright object between 8 to 16 inches (20cm-40cm) in front of his subjects' eyes so that the eyes became strained, after which the eyelids would often close spontaneously. Believing that the 'sleep' resulted from fatigue of the eyes. As he continued with his experiments however he found he achieved trance states by suggestions alone.
Having concluded that the phenomena was a form of sleep. Braid named the phenomena after Hypnos, the Greek god of sleep and master of dreams.
Milton Erickson said this about Braid " It was due to the research of Braid that hypnotism was placed on a scientific basis, In the course of his investigation Braid reached the conclusion that hypnotism was wholly a matter of suggestion, which consitituted the first attempt at a scientific and psychological explanation.
Milton Hyland Erickson (5 December 1901-25 march 1980) Phoenix, Arizona, USA. A Psychiatrist specializing in medical hypnosis and family therapy. He was founding president of the American Society for Clinical Hypnosis. He is noted for his approach to the unconscious mind as creative and solution-generating.
Erickson grew up in Lowell, Wisconsin, in a modest farming family and intended to become a farmer like his father. He was a late developer and was both dyslexic and color blind. He overcame his dyslexia and had many other inspirations via a series of spontaneous autohypnotic "flashes of light" or "creative moments", as described in the paper Autohypnotic Experiences of Milton H. Erickson. At age 17, he contracted polio and was so severely paralysed that the doctors believed he would die. In the critical night when he was at his worst, he had another formative "autohypnotic experience". As I lay in bed that night, I overheard the three doctors tell my parents in the other room that their boy would be dead in the morning. I felt intense anger that anyone should tell a mother her boy would be dead by morning. My mother then came in with as serene a face as can be. I asked her to arrange the dresser, push it up against the side of the bed at an angle. She did not understand why, she thought I was delirious. My speech was difficult. But at that angle by virtue of the mirror on the dresser I could see through the doorway, through the west window of the other room. I was damned if I would die without seeing one more sunset. If I had any skill in drawing, I could still sketch that sunset. I saw that vast sunset covering the whole sky. But I know there was also a fence, tree and boulder there outside the window, but I blocked it out. I saw all the sunset, I blocked out everything except the sunset. ThenI lost consciousness for three days. When I finally awakened, I asked my father why they had taken out that fence, tree, and boulder. I did not realize I had blotted them out when I fixed my attention so intensely on the sunset. Then, as I recovered and became aware of my lack of abilities, I wondered how I was going to earn a living. I had already published a paper in a national agricultural journal. "Why Young Folks Leave the Farm." I no longer had the strength to be a farmer, but maybe I could make it as a doctor.
Recovering, still almost entirely lame in bed, and unable to speak, he became strongly aware of the significance of non-verbal communication - body language, tone of voice and the way that these non-verbal expressions often directly contradicted the verbal ones.
I had polio, and I was totally paralyzed, and the inflammation was so great that I had a sensory paralysis too. I could move my eyes and my hearing was undisturbed. I got very lonesome lying in bed, unable to move anything except my eyeballs. I was quarantined on the farm with seven sisters, one brother, two parents, and a practical nurse. And how could I entertain myself? I started watching people and my environment. I soon learned that my sisters could say "no" when they meant "yes." And they could say "yes" and mean "no" at the same time. They could offer another sister an apple and hold it back. And I began studying nonverbal language and body language. I had a baby sister who had begun to learn to creep. I would have to learn to stand up and walk. And you can imagine the intensity with which I watched as my baby sister grew from creeping to learning how to stand up.
He began to recall "body memories" of the muscular activity of his own body. By concentrating on these memories, he slowly began to regain control of parts of his body to the point where he was eventually again able to talk and use his arms. Still unable to walk, he decided to train his body further, by embarking - alone - on a thousand mile canoe trip with only a few dollars. After this grueling trip, he was able to walk with a cane. This experience may have contributed to Erickson's technique of using "ordeals" in a therapeutic context. (See below).
Erickson was an avid medical student, and was so curious about and engaged with psychiatry that he got a psychology degree while he was still studying medicine.
Much later, in his fifties he developed post-polio syndrome, characterized by pain and muscle weakness caused by the chronic over-use of partially paralyzed muscles. The condition left him even more severely paralysed, but having been through the experience once before, he now had a strategy for recovering some use of his muscles, which he employed again. After this second recovery, he was obliged to use a wheelchair, and suffered chronic pain, which he controlled with self-hypnosis.
Erickson believed that the unconscious mind was always listening, and that, whether or not the patient was in trance, suggestions could be made which would have a hypnotic influence, as long as those suggestions found some resonance at the unconscious level. The patient can be aware of this, or can be completely oblivious that something is happening. Erickson would see if the patient would respond to one or another kind of indirect suggestion, and allow the unconscious mind to actively participate in the therapeutic process. In this way, what seemed like a normal conversation might induce a hypnotic trance, or a therapeutic change in the subject. It should be noted that "[Erickson's] conception of the unconscious is definitely not the one held by Freud."
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