Freud and hypnosis: A reevaluation

Abstract

Freud's attitude and prepsychoanalytic experience with hypnosis has been the subject of both historical and clinical significance. The therapeutic and scientific position of hypnosis in the early part of the 20th century has, to a great degree, been influenced by psychoanalytic considerations. The role of Freud in this connection has often been misunderstood and misinterpreted. This paper reveals Freud's early thinking in relation to hypnosis in the light of more recently available publications. Freud worked intensively with hypnosis in the prepsychoanalytic period and clearly developed considerable skill and understanding of the nature of hypnosis and the dynamics of the hypnotic relationship. His eventual abandonment of hypnosis has previously been examined in relation to transference and countertransference issues, and in this paper additional focus is placed upon the problems of the limitations of a psychotherapy of simplistic suggestion and the need to separate suggestion and hypnosis as psychological phenomena.