Preface

History of hypnosis goes as far back as that of sorcery, magic, and medicine; people have been entering hypnotic-type trances for thousands of years through different forms of meditation in religions of many cultures.

Scientific history of hypnosis, however, only began in the eighteenth century with Franz Mermer, a German physician who used hypnosis to treat patients, as he believed that hypnosis was a supernatural force that flowed from the hypnotist into the subject.

In the nineteenth century, James Braid, a Scottish surgeon, coined the terms *hypnotism* and *hypnosis* after the Greek god of sleep, Hypnos. In the following years, European research demonstrated that hypnosis involved no physical forces or physiological processes, but was merely a combination of psychologically mediated responses to suggestions.

Austrian physician Sigmund Freud was among many who studied hypnosis. He initially used it as a method to help neurotics to recall disturbing memories that they might have forgotten, but later discarded hypnosis in favor of free association.

Hypnosis is a special conscious state characterized by increased receptiveness and awareness. The hypnotist can provoke a variety of psychological, sensory, and motor responses via appropriate suggestions. These suggestions can cause a subject to act as deaf, blind, paralyzed, hallucinated, delusional, amnesic, or impervious to pain or other stimuli. Hypnotized subjects may react in an uncritical and automatic fashion and be inclined to see, feel, smell, and perceive according to the hypnotist's suggestions. The hypnotic changes are not only sensory but also related to the subject's memory and awareness even in extension to the subsequent post-hypnotical activities.

The use of hypnosis in medicine is called medical hypnotherapy and can be efficient in many conditions such as chronic pain, anxiety, mood disorders, and habit changes as in smoking cessation. In many cases, hypnotherapy is superior to other non-pharmacological interventions in providing analgesia, reducing stress, relieving anxiety, and improving sleep and behaviors.

Hypnotherapy can be tailored to different treatment methods, such as cognitivebehavioral therapy. Patients can become more empowered by learning to hypnotize themselves at home to reduce chronic pain, improve sleep, or alleviate some symptoms of depression or anxiety. Cognitive hypnotherapy refers to an empirically based approach using cognitive-behavioral therapy to achieve an integrative approach to clinical hypnosis.

This book reevaluates hypnosis and hypnotherapy in the light of modern brain sciences findings, explaining the scientific mechanism of hypnosis and assessing the techniques used in clinical and medical practice. The aim of this book is to guide professionals in integrating hypnotherapy into conventional evidence-based medicine.
