Editor's Introduction to Papers on Hypnotism and Suggestion

After Freud's return to Vienna from Paris in 1886, he devoted much of his attention for some years to a study of hypnotism and suggestion. Though, of course, the subject crops up at many points (for instance, in the Studies on Hysteria and the obituary of Charcot), writings from this period dealing with it directly seemed to be either non-existent or out of reach, except for the preface to the translation of Bernheim's De la suggestion (1888-9) and the paper on ‘A Case of Successful Treatment by Hypnotism' (1892-3). As it happens, we are now able to insert three fairly long works between these two. In the first place we have exhumed the review of Forel's book on hypnotism (1889a), which seems never to have been reprinted. The other two are newcomers in different ways, and both only came to light in 1963. Of these the first is actually an old acquaintance: the article bearing the title ‘Psychical (or Mental) Treatment’ (1905b) (now 1890a) which appears in Standard Ed., 7, 281. This paper was not included in the Gesammelte Schriften, but was printed in the fifth volume of the Gesammelte Werke and assigned to the year 1905, along with such works as the Three Essays and the ‘Dora’ case history. It was described there as a contribution to Die Gesundheit, a two-volume collective handbook on medicine of a semi-popular character. The paper is centred on hypnotism and contains no allusion whatever to Freud's discoveries apart from a single possible obscure hint at cathartic treatment. It has always seemed mysterious that Freud should suddenly, in 1905, have turned back the clock by fifteen years. The explanation has now been found, by Professor Saul Rosenzweig of Washington University, St. Louis. His investigations showed that the date 1905, hitherto consistently given for this contribution, was actually that of the third edition of Die Gesundheit-a fact which the editors of that handbook had failed to indicate. Its first edition was published in 1890 and already contained F