Hypnosis

Ever since Franz Anton Mesmer induced trance-like states in his Parisian subjects in the late eighteenth century, dressed in long purple robes, hypnosis has been associated with performance, power and the occult. It has exerted a powerful hold over the cultural imagination, featuring in novels and films including Bram Stoker’s Dracula and George du Maurier’s Trilby - and it was even practiced by Charles Dickens himself. But despite some debate within the medical establishment about the scientific validity of hypnosis, it continues to be used today as a successful treatment for physical and psychological conditions. Scientists are also using hypnosis to learn more about the power of suggestion and belief.

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Guests

• Catherine Wynne No other episodes
  Reader in Victorian and Early Twentieth-Century Literature and Visual Cultures at the University of Hull
• Devin Terhune No other episodes
  Reader in Experimental Psychology at King's College London
• Quinton Deeley No other episodes
  Consultant Neuropsychiatrist at the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, and Senior Lecturer at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience at King's College London

Reading list

• The Discovery of the Unconscious: The History and Evolution of Dynamic Psychiatry
  Henri F. Ellenberger (Basic Books, 1970) Google Books →
• That Devil's Trick: Hypnotism and the Victorian Popular Imagination
  William Hughes (Manchester University Press, 2015) Google Books →
• Medical Muses: Hysteria in Nineteenth-Century Paris
  Asti Hustvedt (Bloomsbury, 2011) Google Books →
• Dickens and Mesmerism: The Hidden Springs of Fiction
  Fred Kaplan (Princeton University Press, 2017) Google Books →
• The Mesmerist: The Society Doctor Who Held Victorian London Spellbound
  Wendy Moore (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2017) Google Books →
• The Oxford Handbook of Hypnosis Theory, Research, and Practice
  Michael R. Nash and Amanda J. Barnier (eds.) (Oxford University Press, 2012) Google Books →
• Hypnosis: A Brief History
  Judith Pintar and Steven Jay Lynn (John Wiley & Sons, 2008) Google Books →
• The Suggestible Brain: The Science and Magic of How We Make Up Our Minds
  Amir Raz (Balance, 2024) Google Books →
• Hidden Depths: The Story of Hypnosis
  Robin Waterfield (Pan, 2004) Google Books →
• Mesmerized: Powers of Mind in Victorian Britain
  Alison Winter (Chicago University Press, 1998) Google Books →
• Mario and the Magician: & other stories
  Thomas Mann (Vintage Classics, 1996) Google Books →
• Trilby
  George du Maurier (Penguin Classics, 1994) Google Books →
• Dracula
  Bram Stoker (Penguin Classics, 2003) Google Books →

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Programme ID: m002cqq3

Episode page: bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002cqq3

Auto-category: 154.7 (Hypnosis)