Hypnosis and Suggestion in a Century of Psychotherapy: An Epistemological Assessment

One can say, without exaggeration, that the year 1882 inaugurated a new era of psychotherapy, and that, during the decade, 1882-1892, France was the center of decisive advances in this field. In fact, it was in 1882 that Charcot, the master of the Salpêtrière, then at the summit of his fame, presented, on February 13, his paper on hypnotism to the Academy of Sciences. This fact is all the more noteworthy in that, on several occasions in the course of the century, this same Academy had adopted a frankly unfavorable attitude towards what had been hitherto known as “animal magnetism.” It was also in 1882 that Bernheim and Liébeault met for the first time. The former, a professor at the Medical Faculty of Nancy, was a clinician renowned for his scientific rigor; the latter, a simple country doctor, had been practicing hypnosis for 20 years to give relief to his patients. From this encounter there arose what was later known as the Nancy School, celebrated in France and elsewhere.

Thus hypnosis, so long discredited, came to be rehabilitated in two different areas of scientific research. But as to its interpretation, the Salpêtrière and the Nancy Schools were violently opposed. For the latter, hypnosis was identified with suggestibility, whereas for the former, it was a specific “somatic” state. [Indeed, this controversy continues to this day, particularly in the United States, between “statists” and “nonstatists,” the supporters and detractors of the existence of a specific hypnotic state (Spanos and Barber, 1974)].

At this period, the controversy took place in an atmosphere of great intellectual upheaval, and it is certain that all those throughout