The Uncanny Rise of Medical Hypnotism, 1888–1914: Between Imagination and Suggestion

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Gordon David Lyle Bates

The Uncanny Rise of Medical Hypnotism, 1888–1914

Between Imagination and Suggestion

Gordon David Lyle Bates

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English

Palgrave Macmillan
03 December 2023

History of ideas; States of consciousness; Hypnosis; History of medicine; Complementary therapies, healing & health

Series: Mental Health in Historical Perspective

This book explores the improbable rise of medical hypnotism in Victorian Britain and its subsequent assimilation and neglect. It follows the careers of the ‘New Hypnotists’: Charles Lloyd Tuckey, John Milne Bramwell, George Kingsbury and Robert Felkin. This loosely knit group all trained with the Suggestion School of Nancy and published books on hypnotism. They had to confront the many public and medical prejudices against the trance state which had persisted after the scandalous disgrace of John Elliotson and medical mesmerism, fifty years before.

Hypnotism was a highly contested technology and in the 1890s the debates about safety and utility were fought in the national newspapers as well as the medical journals. The new hypnotists took on the might of the medical institutions personified by Ernest Hart, Editor of the British Medical Journal. However their timing was propitious, as the rise of faith-healing forced the medical profession to confront the non-physical therapeutic aspects of the doctor-patient relationship. The hypnotic discourse was shaped by these developments, but also by the fascination of the general public, novelists, occultists, psychic investigators, educationalists and spiritualists in the myriad possibilities of the trance state.

Despite growing interest in the prehistory of British psychology and talking therapies, and the recent challenges to the primacy of Freudian histories, there are few accounts of the development of British ‘eclectic therapy’. This book uses the New Hypnotists as a lens to examine Victorian medicine and society, exploring their role in establishing the term ‘psychotherapy,’ and legitimising medical hypnotism, a precursor of psychological therapies.

By: Gordon David Lyle Bates
Imprint: Palgrave Macmillan
Country of Publication: Switzerland
Edition: 2023 ed.
Dimensions: Height: 210mm, Width: 148mm,
Weight: 503g
ISBN: 9783031427244
ISBN 10: 3031427246
Series: Mental Health in Historical Perspective
Pages: 265
Publication Date: 03 December 2023
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Gordon Bates is a Consultant Psychiatrist and Postdoctoral Researcher at Birkbeck, University of London, in the UK. He was made a fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists and has held posts at the Universities of Birmingham and Warwick. Gordon has published over twenty articles in scientific journals and contributed chapters to edited books. He is the medical humanities editor of the journal, Child and Adolescent Mental Health.

Reviews for The Uncanny Rise of Medical Hypnotism, 1888–1914: Between Imagination and Suggestion

“The Uncanny Rise of Medical Hypnotism,1888-1914 is … a significant contribution to the history of medicine and psychology. Bates's comprehensive research, balanced analysis, and engaging writing — lucid, succinct, well-structured, each chapter expanding on the previous one — make this book an essential resource for any academic or general reader interested in the development of medical hypnotism and its broader societal and cultural implications.” (Erin Johanson, BAVS Newsletter, Vol. 24 (2), 2024