“What Is Hypnosis?” Describe the Psychological and Physical Aspects of Hypnosis and Discuss the Role of Relaxation in Hypnotherapy Essay

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What is hypnosis? People have various different conceptions about what hypnosis really is. Many opinions are incorrect due to the way the media has portrayed Hypnosis. People imagine Derren Brown or Paul McKenna on stage, hypnotising subjects with pendants and then making them complete foolish acts on stage. Some people believe a hypnotized subject is asleep, or even unconscious when induced into the hypnotic state, and others believe it is a mystical and magical state. However, this has been proved to be incorrect. The process of Hypnosis is considered to be an altered state of consciousness where a subject is much more receptive to suggestion. Hypnotherapy is so unbelievably diverse that it has a place in resolving many issues and problems that a subject may experience.

The history of Hypnosis has been a long and complicated journey. Many have attempted different explanations. There are paintings from ancient Egypt which show a person asleep, with others standing over him giving the impression that the subject was being hypnotized. Although paintings can be somewhat misunderstood, this has still provided hypnotists with a great deal of excitement over the years.

Franz Anton Mesmer was born 23 May 1734 in an origin now considered to be a part of Germany. Mesmer expressed that the reason there were astrological influences in a persons medical health was because there was an invisible fluid in a person’s body which reacted to magnets. Through the power of Hypnosis and also using a strong magnet, he attempted to cure the musician Maria Theresa Paradis who has suffered from blindness since approximately aged 4, in the years 1776 and 1777. There were positive results and the subject began to gain her eyesight back, until Mesmer was removed from her care, when the blindness came back for good.

In 1814, Abbe Faria disagreed with Mesmer’s theory completely. He claimed that the effects of the so-called Animal Magnetism were in fact caused by...