Some HISTORY on HYPNOTHERAPY
In the 1800's, hypnosis was widely practiced by physicians, particularly in Europe. In days before drugs were part of the arsenal of phsicians, it was used as an anesthetic and analgesic.
Various forces led to its going underground--or actually "on stage," since stage hypnotists kept it alive during the early part of this century. Undoubtedly the widespread availability of chemical anesthesia and analgesics was a strong factor.
"Queen Victoria had chloroform for delivery of her third child. Overnight, hypnosis was out," says Emil Spillman, MD, a pathologist who has practiced and taught medical hypnosis for decades.
Another strong factor in its demise as a theraputic tool was Freud's disenchantment with it. Freud admits in his writings that he is not very good at hypnosis---undoubtedly one reason he quit using it.
But he also, according to Dr. Spillman, was concerned about "symptom substitution," the belief that if you removed a symptom, it might be replaced by something worse.
Dr. Spillman's own experience with thousands of patients over 25 years is that "this doesn't happen." If a patient's symptom (for example, migraine headache---Dr. Spillman believes 95% of these are curable with hypnosis) is associated with a highly emotional event in his/her past, hypnosis can remove the symptom permanently, with no side effects.
But if the symptom is a way of coping with a trauma that is current in the person's life---for example, a bad marriage---"the hypnosis simply will not work without dealing with the trauma itself."
The idea that hypnosis is harmful has now been discounted. David Spiegel, MD, Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University School of Medicine, put it this way:
Physicians often worry that hypnosis involved significant risks to patients. Actually, the phenomenon is not dangerous and has fewer side effects than even the most benign medications.
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