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Global Health Econ Sustain Hypnosis: Refiguring health care practice

that result in analgesia and, often, local anesthesia of out of conscious awareness – trauma into conscious
the laceration site before injection (Elman, 1964/1984). memory, a process called abreaction (Kenny, 2016). Freud’s
Furthermore, the use of posthypnotic suggestion can techniques, in this regard, underwent various stages of
reinforce the relaxation and comfort following the current development.
procedure as well as any such procedures that may arise in In the first stage of development, Freud, in collaboration
the future. with his mentor, Josef Breuer, an Austrian physician and

7.4. Utilization in psychotherapy physiologist, used Breuer’s technique termed the cathartic
(Breuer & Freud, 1893/1953, p. 8) method. This procedure
Although every discipline of health care can readily involved the utilization of trance hypnosis. Helping the
improve their efficacy of treatment by the trained patient, within the state of trance hypnosis, talk about
utilization of hypnosis, this is especially so for any pent-up emotions associated with and relive the traumatic
discipline whose treatment modality places special experience, was thought to resolve their symptoms and
emphasis on the (trained) utilization of communication cure them.
(of suggestion) in their therapy, care, and/or rehabilitation
of those incurring mental and/or physical illness and/or In the second stage of development, however, Freud
disease. It is even more so for that of psychotherapy, which said that he had abandoned the utilization of hypnosis and
places additional emphasis on the (trained) utilization of abreaction. In this respect, Freud (1917/1977) stated:
communication about the utilization of communication Originally Breuer and I myself carried out
in the therapeutic interaction or relationship – that is, psychotherapy by means of hypnosis [emphasis added];
their (client/practitioner) communication about their Breuer’s first patient was treated throughout under
communication now, otherwise referred to as second order hypnotic influence, and to begin with I followed him
communication, or meta-communication (Bateson, 1972; in this. I admit that at that period the work proceeded
Dennis & Phipps, 2020; Green & Phipps, 2015; Phipps, more easily and pleasantly, and also in a much shorter
2004; Phipps, 2019a; Phipps & Vorster, 2011; Phipps & time. However, results were capricious and not lasting;
Vorster, 2015; Ruesch & Bateson, 1961; Vorster, 2003; and for that reason I finally dropped hypnosis [emphasis
Vorster, 2011; Vorster et al., 2013; Watzlawick et al., 1967; added]…. I have been able to say that psychoanalysis
Watzlawick & Weakland, 1977; Watzlawick et al., 1974). proper began when I dispensed with the help of hypnosis
[emphasis added]. (pp. 327–328).
More particularly, in psychotherapy, the trained,
comprehensive utilization of suggestion beyond simply Although examination of the rationale for Freud’s
that of waking suggestion to that of trance and waking decision is beyond the scope of this discussion, what is
hypnosis too, in every theoretical approach, including important is that he was adamant that he had dispensed
the psychoanalytic, behavioral, humanistic, interactional with the utilization of hypnosis and abreaction, replacing
(i.e., systems), narrative, and cognitive-behavioral them with a technique, called free association, used in the
approach, enables a significantly increased (i.e., by an order analysis of the resistance (Kenny, 2016).
of 66.67%—use of 1/3 suggestions to 3/3 suggestions) The technique of free association required the analysand
repertoire of communication. More importantly, it enables (i.e., patient) to say whatever came into their mind, with
a higher-order, integrative approach to the therapy (Phipps, no attempt to censure or organize their thoughts and,
2023), itself, the increased repertoire and higher-order thereby, to allow a free flow of associations, emotions, and
construct, themselves, enabling significantly increased images to emerge (Kenny, 2016). Its intended purpose is
psychotherapeutic treatment efficacy. to simultaneously expose and undo defensive blocking of
An example of the possible integrated utilization those associations within the analysand (i.e., repression)
of hypnosis in psychotherapy, and by way of a limited and those associations with transference – that is,
observation of an earlier development, is Freud’s emotion which the analysand is unable to recall that is
psychoanalysis and his use of free association. re-experienced in relation to the analyst (i.e., practitioner)
– (i.e., resistance; Kenny, 2016).
7.4.1. Psychoanalysis and free association In terms of the technique, itself, Freud’s instruction to
Briefly, the aim of Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalysis was the analysand was:
to support expression of the affect associated with (what “Act as though…you were a traveller sitting next to
is postulated as) a traumatic memory, a process later the window of a railway carriage and describing to
referred to as catharsis, and to bring the repressed – that someone inside the carriage the changing views…you
is, a defense mechanism that keeps unconscious material see outside” (Freud, 1913/1953, p. 135).

Volume 2 Issue 1 (2024) 9 https://doi.org/10.36922/ghes.1713