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This article attempts to briefly outline the historical context and origin of cognitive-behavioural hypnotherapy, a major sub-modality of modern hypnotherapy. It proceeds to examine the relationship between hypnotherapy and cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) from this perspective.
Hypno-CBT(rtm) is a proprietary model of cognitive-behavioural hypnotherapy. This article provides a basic overview and explanation of this approach.
Morton Prince’s approach to psychotherapy, as described in his 1906 article, illustrates the use of “rational persuasion” methods in hypnotherapy, an early precursor of modern cognitive-behavioural hypnotherapy.
James Braid, the founder of hypnotherapy, coined the term “hypnotism” but reserved the concept of hypnotic “trance” (from a word meaning “half-dead”) for a tiny percentage of exceptional cases in which a state of total unconsciousness could be induced resembling coma, chemical anaesthesia, or animal hibernation. Braid’s use of the term is therefore more consistent with modern cognitive-behavioural theorists, both preferring to describe hypnosis as an “ordinary” state rather than “trance”.
James Braid, the founder of hypnotherapy, was unaware of oriental meditation techniques until a few years after introducing his technique of eye-fixation hypnotism. He subsequently embraced the notion that hypnotism and yogic meditation were distant cousins, and even that they were more closely-related than hypnotism and its immediate precursor, Mesmer’s animal magnetism.