Hypnosis History Overview

   Hypnosis started prehistorically in ancient time 5000 years ago, with Christian mysticism and ancient practices. Then the modern hypnosis started in 1747 with Franz Anton Mesmer (1734-1815), who was an Austrian physician, he believed that the phenomenon known as mesmerism, or animal magnetism, or fluidum was related to an invisible substance. Mesmer believed that there is a fluid that runs within the subject or between the subject and the hypnotist, the mesmerism pioneers the hypnosis around 1819.

   The term hypnosis was introduced in the 1840s by a Scottish surgeon James Braid (1795-1860), who believed the subject to be in a particular state of sleep--a trance, Braid pioneers term “Hypnotism”.

   In1800s Ivan Pavlov suggest the physiological Model of Hypnotism. Around the late 19th century, a French neurologist Jean Martin Charcot (1825-1893) thought hypnotism to be a special physiological state. In 1895 Sigmund Freud present Hypnotic regression theory.

   In 1920 Emile Couè came with conscious autosuggestion. In 1960s Milton Ericksonintroduce the indirect suggestion. Then T.H. Barber present  cognitive-behavioural hypnotherapy. 1970s onwards Neuro-Linguistic Programming NLP.