International Handbook of Clinical Hypnosis - E-Lib FK UWKS

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International Handbook of Clinical Hypnosis. Edited by G. D. Burrows, R. O. Stanley, P. B. Bloom
Copyright # 2001 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
ISBNs: 0-471-97009-3Hardback); 0-470-84640-2 Electronic)
Personality and Psychotic
Disorders
JOAN MURRAY-JOBSIS
Human Resource Consultants,Chapel Hill,NC,USA
HISTORICAL PRESPECTIVE
THE EARLY PERIOD: A PESSIMISTIC VIEW OF HYPNOSIS WITH
SEVERELY DISTURBED PATIENTS
The current status of clinical hypnosis in the treatment of Personality and Psychotic
Disorders has been evolving since the mid-1800s. The earliest notation of successful
hypnosis with a psychotic patient was reported by Esquirol in 1838. In this
report, Esquirol described experiments done by Abbe Faria and himself in 1813
and 1816 on the effects of magnetism in mental disease. Esquirol reported that he
and Faria experimented on eleven women, either insane or monomanic. He stated
that only one of these eleven women responded to the magnetic in¯uence Lavoie
& Sabourin, 1980).
Later, in 1868, Dr Andries Hoek, a practicing physician in The Hague, reported
on his successful treatment of a psychotic patient with hypnosis in 1851 van der
Hart & van der Velden, 1987). Following this report by Hoek, the French psychiatrist
Auguste Voisin also reported positive clinical work with psychotic patients
1884, 1887, 1897a,b). Voisin described work with patients with delusional
psychotic conditions and was enthusiastic about the therapeutic results of the use of
hypnosis with these conditions. Voisin estimated that 10% of the psychotic population
was hypnotizable.
However, following these moderately encouraging reports of Esquirol, Hoek and
Voisin, several subsequent clinical reports indicated varying and con¯icting results
with hypnosis and severe mental illness. Pitres 1891), reporting on his clinical
studies with psychotics, concluded that persons suffering from nonhysterical delusions
did not usually pro®t from `suggestive therapy'. Terrien 1902) concluded
from his studies that hypnotism was not useful in the treatment of severe mental
See the Editor's Note on page 186.
International Handbook of Clinical Hypnosis. Edited by G. D. Burrows, R. O. Stanley and P. B. Bloom
# 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd