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By Francesco Pellegatta |
Now we will get to know an induction coming from another big name in the history of Hypnosis, Hippolyte Bernheim He was a Medical Doctor and graduated in 1867 at the University of Strasburg. At that time Strasburg was part of France and in 1871 with the Franco-Prussian war Strasburg passed to Germany and Bernheim moved to the city of Nancy in France.
In Nancy he met Libeault, another big name in the field, and together they became the major exponents of the Nancy School (of Hypnosis). This was one of the most famous Schools of Hypnosis in the world at that time.
Bernheim’s hypnosis is really autoritarian.
Personally I found Bernheim’s method interesting for two reasons:
1. He adopted many of the terms and the concepts created by Pierre Janet. One of the most important terms he adopted – which should be familiar to most NLP and Hypnotherapy graduates – was “Rapport”.
Another inspiration emerging from Pierre Janet were two concepts very familiar to all NLP Practitioners. These are the terms “Dissociation” and “Unconscious” although at the time he called it “Subconscious”… so we owe Janet and then Bernheim important pieces of our specialized jargon.
2. The second reason I like Bernheim’s method is because it made me think for the very first time in my life that Sigmund Freud had something important to say. Of course I am joking here…. however, and I think this is really important. When Freud went to visit the Nancy school in 1889, and saw Bernehim working with a patient, he is reported to have said:
“I was a spectator of Bernheim’s astonishing experiments upon his hospital patients, and I received the profoundest impression of the possibility that there could be powerful mental processes which nevertheless remained hidden from the consciousness of man”.
So you can relax because if Freud understood that there are unconscious and powerful processes at work, try to imagine how easy is gonna be for your students to do the same,”
Bernheim Induction
Fixation on 2 fingers.
- Look at me and think of nothing but sleep. Your eyelids begin to feel heavy, your eyes tired. They begin to wink, the are getting moist, you cannot see distinctly. They are
- Your eyelids are closing, you cannot open them again. Your arms feel heavy, so do your legs. You cannot feel Your hands are motionless.
- You see nothing, you are going to sleep,
- SLEEP!
- Give suggestions
- Bring the client out of trance.
This induction was taken from the book “Suggestive Therapeutics A Treatise on the Nature and Uses of Hypnotism” of H.Bernheim MD.