A Brief History of Hypnosis: From Mesmer to Erickson
People are often surprised to learn how long hypnosis has been part of medicine, and how much of its popular image comes from a few theatrical characters. Here’s a short tour of where modern hypnotherapy came from.
Ancient roots
Many cultures have used trance, ritual, chanting and “temple sleep” as part of healing. Ancient Greek healing temples dedicated to Asclepius, for example, encouraged patients to rest and dream as part of their treatment. It’s tempting to call all of this hypnosis, and you’ll see dramatic claims online, but the honest view is that these practices share some features with hypnosis rather than being the same thing.
Mesmer and “animal magnetism”
The modern story usually starts with Franz Anton Mesmer, born in 1734 in what is now Germany and trained as a physician in Vienna. Mesmer believed illness came from an imbalance in an invisible magnetic fluid and that he could restore balance with magnets and, later, sweeping hand movements. His sessions were dramatic and popular. In 1784 a French royal commission that included Benjamin Franklin investigated and concluded that the effects came from imagination, not magnetism. They were right about the mechanism, but in a sense they had discovered the power of expectation and suggestion. We still say someone is “mesmerized.”
Braid gives hypnosis its name
In the 1840s the Scottish surgeon James Braid studied these phenomena and argued they were about focused attention, not magnetism. He coined the term “hypnosis.” Around the same time, surgeons such as James Esdaile in India reported performing operations using hypnotic pain relief before chemical anesthesia became widespread.
Hypnosis and early psychology
In late 19th-century France, physicians including Jean-Martin Charcot and Hippolyte Bernheim debated what hypnosis was. The young Sigmund Freud studied with both and used hypnosis before developing psychoanalysis. Interest waxed and waned, but research continued.
Milton Erickson and the modern approach
The American psychiatrist Milton H. Erickson (1901–1980) transformed clinical hypnosis. Instead of commanding people into trance, he used everyday language, stories, metaphors and the client’s own experiences to invite change. His work helped hypnosis gain wider acceptance in American medicine and psychology, and it later inspired Richard Bandler and John Grinder when they developed NLP. This Ericksonian, permissive style is the foundation of how I work.
Recognition and research
In 1955 the British Medical Association reported on the medical use of hypnosis, and the American Medical Association followed in 1958. Since then, researchers have used brain imaging and clinical trials to study hypnosis for pain, anxiety, irritable bowel syndrome and more. There’s still much to learn, but hypnosis is now a well-studied complementary approach rather than a stage trick.
Why this history matters to you
Knowing where hypnosis came from helps clear away the myths. It isn’t magic or mind control; it’s a natural capacity for focused attention that people have used, in one form or another, for a very long time.
If you’d like to find out whether this approach is a good fit for you, I offer a free, no-pressure consultation. Get in touch here and we can talk it through.
