International Handbook of Clinical Hypnosis - E-Lib FK UWKS

4 INTERNATIONAL HANDBOOK OF CLINICAL HYPNOSIS
judgment and reality testing, a suspension of forward planning, increased suggestibility,
heightened imagery or involvement in fantasy, and hypnotic role behaviour.
While there are many de®nitions of hypnosis, the most widely accepted is that
proposed by the British Medical Association as a result of their investigation into
the use of hypnosis in medicine in 1955 BMA, 1955, 1982):
Hypnosis is a temporary condition of altered perception in the subject which may be
induced by another person and in which a variety of phenomena may appear spontaneously
or in response to verbal or other stimuli. These phenomena include alterations
in consciousness and memory, increased susceptibility to suggestion, and the production
in the subject of responses and ideas unfamiliar to him in his normal state of
mind. Further phenomena such as anaesthesia, paralysis and the rigidity of muscles,
and vasomotor changes can be produced and removed in the hypnotic state.
HISTORICAL USE IN THE TREATMENT OF CLINICAL PROBLEMS
The use of hypnosis, under other names, for the treatment of clinical problems has
a long history, being recorded in ancient scripts describing ritual and religious
ceremonies. The phenomena of hypnosis have been used to account for miraculous
cures that in the middle ages were attributed to sacred statues, healing springs and
the `laying on of hands' by those of high status or religious power. The more
modern use of hypnosis began with the work of the Viennese physician Franz
Mesmer, who achieved many spectacular cures which he attributed to the appropriate
redistribution of invisible `magnetic ¯uid' within the body. In 1784, a
commission of Louis XVI could ®nd no evidence of animal magnetism, and
attributed Mesmer's successes to suggestion.
Despite Mesmer's fall from popularity following the Royal Commission, interest
in the clinical application of hypnosis developed rapidly throughout the nineteenth
century. The term hypnosis was coined in 1841 by James Braid, a Manchester
surgeon, who believed that a psychological state similar to sleep accounted for the
phenomena observed. The use of hypnosis by the French neurologist Charcot, and
by Breuer and Freud in the 1880s, extended its use to the treatment of neurotic
disorders broadly referred to as `hysterical.' Freud subsequently abandoned the use
of hypnosis in favour of psychoanalytic techniques Sulloway, 1979).
The development of behavioural approaches in psychology in the early twentieth
century saw a temporary lessening of interest in internal psychological processes
such as hypnosis. Despite this, the use of hypnosis to induce relaxation in
behavioural therapies for anxiety was frequently described Beck & Emery, 1985;
Clarke & Jackson, 1983; Marks, Gelder & Edwards, 1968; Rubin, 1972; Rossi,
1986). Hypnotic phenomena were also used to induce behavioural change Hussain,
1964; Wolpe, 1958, 1973; Kroger & Fezler, 1976) but the nature of the hypnotic
component was not always discussed. The more recent development of cognitive
therapies which focus on altering the patient's perceptions and cognitions Brewin,