Hénin de Cuvillers – The Creator of Hypnosis

By Rémi Côté

Historically, hypnotherapy can be traced back to the origins of clinical psychology. Hypnosis is a medical and psychological discipline with 200 years of recorded history and its effectiveness has been validated by numerous scientific studies. This little book aims to help recognize the work of ?tienne F?lix d'H?nin de Cuvillers (1755-1841) and reinstate him as the true inventor of scientific hypnosis. We will demonstrate that many techniques and concepts of modern hypnotherapy and psychotherapy are attributable to his research. While it may be difficult to understand why H?nin de Cavillers' work was forgotten or disregarded by most of the researchers and theorists in the field. This book seeks to correct this careless omission.The ambition of this little book is neither to cover the entire history of hypnosis nor to summarize everything that was written about clinical hypnosis at the time in H?nin de Cuvillers' work. However, we will cover his main innovations, some two centuries ago, at the very origin of hypnosis. We shall see why we can affirm that the Baron d'H?nin de Cuvillers, a member of the Academy of Sciences of Paris, was the creator of the method of hypnotic suggestion.Unfortunately, even when confronted to the writings of Cuvillers, very few scholars and theorists acknowledge his importance. Gravitz and Gerton (1984) commented about H?nin de Cuvillers' writing, but today, too many researchers and academic theorists are ready to claim paternity of his concepts, despite their being two hundred years old! Indeed, many ideas and concepts of hypnosis, psychology and psychotherapy must be attributed to H?nin de Cuvillers. With the help of translation from various texts, we will read in Cuvillers' own word, his conceptions, theories and techniques of hypnosis.Reading this book will help you understand the real history of hypnosis, its contribution to psychology and psychotherapy and its fundamental techniques. In and of itself this humble work is intended as a small and respectful tribute to ?tienne F?lix d'H?nin de Cuvillers who was the first to write and publish about the fundamental laws of psychology that indicated that relaxation and calm are psychologically healthy! H?nin de Cuvillers was the first to publish scientific studies on hypnotic techniques used in deepening the states of calm and relaxation that we call trance.Hypnosis is not placeboWe will demonstrate that the main object of H?nin de Cuvillers' work was to demystify hypnosis and to show that it is not a placebo effect. He wanted to reasonably describe what was then called magnetism as a scientifically plausible mechanism. In his writing, he made clear that this mechanism was not the produce of faith or any magic or superstition. If he could have, he would have used today's language to certify that hypnosis is not the result of a placebo effect. For H?nin de Cuvillers, hypnosis was something different from the beliefs, faith, credulity and superstition that we ascribe today to placebo effect. Hypnosis was not the result of conditioned expectations of the experience of positive effects. Conversely, according to his conception, the mechanism of action of hypnosis resides in the access it gives to the imagination.Unlike magnetizers, H?nin de Cuvillers did not rely on "unfalsifiable" dogmas, but rather on facts and repeatable effects. For him, imagination itself has a power on the human body. On the physiological level, his writings invoked the virtues of muscular inhibition and relaxation. He stated that hypnotic trance was produced by the blissful immobility offered by what he called the Ab?aston, a posture where the hypnotized person concentrated on his own hand, on the sensations of warmth, energy and its benevolent protection. In the next chapter, we will see that according to H?nin de Cuvillers hypnosis could not be a sham or placebo, because it involves a consensual investment of the imagination.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1521927863
• ISBN13: 9781521927861
• Release Date: July 2017
• Publisher: Independently published
• Length: 139 Pages
• Weight: 0.59 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.3" x 6.0"