In the mid eighteenth century Franz Anton Mesmer introduced the concepts and techniques of animal magnetism. Mesmerism became an influential school of esoteric therapy and important Mesmerists like James Esdaile and John Elliotson helped maintain its popularity in medicine until the end of the nineteenth century when it experienced a kind of resurgance in the work of Jean-Martin Charcot, the father of modern neurology.
However, in the 1840s, Scottish physician James Braid, had already pioneered the concept of hypnotism as an opposing tradition to Mesmerism, based upon basic psychological and physiological mechanisms rather than the occult theories of animal magnetism. Braid's work was of limited influence in the UK but in France his ideas were developed into a more sophisticated psychological treatment. Hippolyte Bernheim began as a sceptic but became converted to the importance of hypnotism by observing the work of the celebrated country doctor Ambroise-Auguste Liébeault who rejected the theory of Mesmer and followed Abbe Faria. Emile Coué, a former clinical assistant to Liébeault, proposed a more collaborative and educational alternative to hypnosis called "conscious autosuggestion" which became very popular as a form of self-help in the 1920s.
An important rivalry and debate developed between the Salpetriere school of Charcot, which focused on physiological phenomena induced by Mesmeric practices, and the Nancy School of Bernheim which placed more emphasis upon psychology and verbal suggestion, following the later writings of Braid. However, Charcot's ideas on hypnosis were almost entirely discredited and Bernheim's school effectively won the debate, becoming the most significant precursor of modern psychological hypnotism.Sigmund Freud was originally a proponent of hypnotherapy. He traveled to France to study hypnosis with the two great teachers of his day, Charcot at the Sapetriere and Bernheim's Nancy School. Freud wrote several articles on hypnotherapy and translated two of Bernheim's books on the subject from French into German. He originally employed hypnotherapy with a small number of clients in the 1890s. By about 1905, he had largely abandoned the procedure in favor of his newly-developed free association technique. However, Freud's description of the basic rule of free association still bears a striking resemblance to certain modern methods of hypnotic induction. Struggling with the great expense of time required for psychoanalysis to be successful, Freud later suggested that it might be combined with hypnotic suggestion once more in an attempt to hasten the outcome of treatment,
- It is very probable, too, that the application of our therapy to numbers will compel us to alloy the pure gold of analysis plentifully with the copper of direct suggestion. (‘Lines of advance in psycho-analytic therapy’, 1919)
However, only a handful of Freud's followers were sufficiently qualified in hypnosis to attempt the synthesis, which resulted in a gradual resurgence in popularity of "hypno-analysis" or "hypnotic regression" methods of hypnotherapy.
Milton H. Erickson, M.D. is considered one of the most influential modern hypnotherapists. He has written many books, journals and articles on the subject, and his accomplishments are well-documented.
During the 1960s, Erickson was responsible for popularizing an entirely new branch of hypnotherapy, which we now call Ericksonian hypnotherapy, characterized by, amongst other things, indirect suggestion, confusion techniques, and double binds.
The popularity of Erickson's techniques has since led to the development of neuro-linguistic programming (NLP), which has in turn found use in modern-day sales, advertising, and corporate training. However, NLP has been criticized by many eminent hypnotists as a distortion of Erickson's work. For example, Andre Weitzenhoffer, a leading Stanford researcher and former colleague of Erickson, complained,
- [...] Richard Bandler and John Grinder [the founders of NLP] have on the other hand, offered a much adulterated, and at times fanciful, version of what they perceived Erickson as saying or doing guided by their own personal theorising. (Weitzenhoffer, The Practice of Hypnotism, 2000: 592-593)
