Freud and hypnosis: Report of post-rejection use

Abstract

The development of hypnosis as a therapeutic and experimental method was significantly influenced by Sigmund Freud's announced rejection of the technique late in the nineteenth century; however, a Hungarian-born hypnotist, Franz Polgar, related in his little-known autobiography that he served as Freud's assistant for six months in 1924. Possible factors related to this seeming paradox are discussed, including the evidence that many of Freud's psychoanalytic colleagues were then actively interested in hypnosis and the negative value associated with the modality had been lifted during the time when Polgar reported that Freud himself was utilizing the method. This is a historically important account of the interface between two prominent therapeutic techniques.

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