Hypnotism: A Survey of Its History, Phenomena, and Present Status in Medicine and Psychology

For a number of years I have been interested in hypnotism aa a special psychotherapeutic method and on occasion have used it as such. Gradually my interest in the subject widened to include the psychological and physiological aspects of the phenomena induced by hypnotic suggestion. In the end, it was only through the history of hypnotism that many of the implications of its present status, where it hovers even yet on the fringe of scientific respectability, were more fully understood and appreciated.If the phenomena of hypnosis and suggestion could be clearly understood as standing on a scientific psychological basis the atmosphere of mystery and scepticism would vanish. As it is there is no subject so much mistrusted, not only by the general public, but also by the majority of the medical profession, as those of hypnosis and suggestion. Yet suggestion, I might even say hypnosis, is extensively, if unconsciously, practiced by physicians. A temperate and reasonable statement of the phenomena of hypnosis should do much to remove the stigma of charlatanism, occultism, bizarre chicanery, and the baseless extravagances of claims that have been made for the condition in the past. This stigma has persistently blinded the larger portion of the scientific world throughout the history of hypnosis to the fundamental psychological and physiological facts upon which the induction, as well as the phenomena, of hypnosis depend.The objects in the study which this thesis represents may then be declared: firstly, to clarify the atmosphere of quackery, fraud, and superstitious beliefs which are historically associated with the subject of hypnosis and to seek a proper evaluation of the facts of hypnosis; secondly, to emphasize the contributions which hypnosis has made to psychology, psychopathology, and physiology; thirdly, to point out the uses of hypnotism as a diagnostic and therapeutic agent in medicine; fourthly, to discuss the possibilities for the use of hypnosis in psychological experimentation.