Hypnosis

A state of decreased general awareness with heightened attention to a constricted or localized area of stimulation, such as repetitive suggestions by another person (the hypnotist) involving consciousness, memory, anesthesia, or paralysis. The state usually is associated with the feeling that the subject is behaving nonvolitionally even though aware of what the behavior is. Factors determining the subject’s responsivity include the nature of the preexisting relationship with the hypnotist; prior expectations, beliefs, and motivations concerning hypnosis; and, most important, characterological and individual differences.

A phenomenon characterized by a person’s ability to respond to appropriate suggestions by altering perception or memory.

Any agent that induces sleep. Although sedatives and narcotics in sufficient dosage may produce sleep as an incidental effect, the term hypnotic is appropriately reserved for drugs employed primarily to produce sleep.

An induced state susceptibility. Two aspects: a. posthypnotic suggestion and b. hypnotic regression.

A state like sleep, but caused artificially, where a person can remember forgotten events in the past and will do whatever the hypnotist tells him or her to do.

Passive, sleeplike state in which perception and memory are altered, and the person is more responsive to suggestion and has more recall than usual; used in psychotherapy and in medicine to induce relaxation and relieve pain. Susceptibility to hypnosis varies widely.

A sleeplike mental state in which the individual is unusually open to suggestion and may behave, think, or perceive in uncharacteristic or seemingly impossible ways. Under hypnosis, consciousness is reoriented from the outside world to mental, sensory, and physiological experiences. Hypnosis is usually induced by a hypnotist.

A sleeplike state, artificially induced in a person by a hypnotist, in which the mind is more than usually receptive to suggestion and memories of past events, apparently forgotten, may be elicited by questioning. Hypnotic suggestion has been used for a variety of purposes in medicine, for example as a cure for addiction and in other forms of psychotherapy.

A condition resembling sleep in which the objective manifestations of the mind are more or less inactive, accompanied by an increased susceptibility to suggestions.

Derived from the Greek hypnos meaning “sleep”; a sleeplike state in which a range of behavioral responses may be induced by suggestion. The person being hypnotized appears to heed only the communications of the hypnotist and sees, smells, feels, and tastes as directed, apparently with no will to do otherwise. There is a school of opinion that asserts there is no such thing as hypnosis, that it is all either stage trickery or pseudoscientific rubbish. Another school just as vehemently asserts that hypnosis has paranormal roots in the occult and the magical. Still others argue for a normal psychological explanation for the phenomenon, centered round the use of suggestive imagery by powerful authority figures.

Priests in ancient Egypt, Persia, and Greece used types of hypnotic practices, and they played a spiritual role in early Christianity. But it was not until the 1840s that James Braid (1795-1860), a Scottish surgeon practicing in Manchester, England, began a scientific investigation into the phenomenon. Braid recognized that he was looking at a problem in the field of psychology and attempted to dispel the whole superstitious aura that surrounded the practice, then called mesmerism or animal magnetism; he coined a new name “neurohypnotism” which was later shortened to “hypnotism.” Braid saw hypnosis as a kind of sleep induced by fatigue, resulting from the intense concentration necessary for staring fixedly at a bright object. Looking into the future, Braid hoped that the practice would be used to cure “nervous” diseases and also to alleviate the anxiety of surgery. Because of its previous taint of mysticism and charlatanism, the medical profession did not look favorably on his ideas. When Braid died, interest rapidly faded. It was not until the 1880s, when French neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot (1825-93) came upon some of Braids papers, that interest in the subject revived. Sigmund Freud studied with Charcot, who by then was using hypnosis in his inquiry into and treatment of “hysteria,” a supposed women’s disease then thought, quite erroneously, to be caused by a disturbance of the uterus. Sometime later Freud, along with others, developed a procedure using hypnosis that is usually regarded as the precursor of psychoanalysis, the understanding of the self.

In the realm of therapeutic practices, there exists a method to evoke a profound state of relaxation and receptiveness, specifically designed to address the challenges of amnesia and identity disruptions prevalent in dissociative disorders. This technique serves as a conduit for accessing the depths of the subconscious, facilitating healing and resolution within the intricate landscapes of the mind.

Hypnosis is a trance-like condition of heightened consciousness marked by exceptional suggestibility. Some psychoanalysts may employ hypnosis to help patients recall and confront distressing experiences. However, it’s more commonly used to aid relaxation. It can be beneficial for individuals dealing with anxiety, panic attacks, or phobias, or for those looking to break addictive behaviors.