Category: Sex Counseling & Sexology

A bit of hypnotic history

Excerpt from Chapter One of my book:

From the earliest psychological explorations of hypnotic susceptibility in women to modern sexological speculations on the nature of erotic trance, from ritual erotic ecstasy to the bawdy patter of the stage hypnotist or the soothing suggestions of a hypnotic sex therapist – hypnosis and sex have often been entwined. Nor it is easy to distinguish so-called therapeutic interests from more personal ones. For example, physicians perusing the British Medical Journal of the 1890s were treated to images of scantily clad, “hysterical” hypnotized females in suggestive and abandoned poses (Hart,1892). These photos were sometimes published in special portfolios. –Sexological Hypnosis: Overview, History, & Techniques (2022)

We’ve come a long, long way from the strangely voyeuristic interests of the male doctors and hypnosis students of mid-19th century Europe. Back then, women were thought to be naturally more susceptible to suggestion (didn’t they wish!) and many otherwise serious fellows took delight in showing off the trance antics of their favorite patients, in front of other doctors and enraptured medical students.

We’ve got some “spice,” but not much professional “sugar”

Luckily, exploration of the art and science of hypnosis became more mainstream over the decades. Now, well over a century later, the efficacy of hypnosis is well-established in medicine and psychology. What’s less established, and somewhat more marginalized, is documentation of how hypnosis has been used–for over a century–to help people with sex and sexual health concerns. This specialized focus of hypnosis is what I call “sexological hypnosis”–it’s hypnosis aligned with the sex positive, diversity welcoming, nonjudgmental, approach of clinical sexology.

Sure, many brilliant people have incorporated hypnosis into their research and practices, including Daniel Araoz, PhD, author of Hypnosis and Sex Therapy, and many other books and articles on this topic; William Hartman, PhD, of the Hartman & Fithian sex therapy duo (contemporaries of Masters & Johnson); Bernie Zilbergeld, PhD, author of Male Sexuality; Lonnie Barbach, PhD, author of For Yourself: The Fulfillment of Female Sexuality and numerous other books, plus hypnosis CDs with Joel Block, PhD; and countless others.

But to my knowledge–and it’s true I sometimes self-identify as living under a rock–I don’t know of any organization, or working group, or much of anything that focuses upon and elevates this speciality. I do try, with my own books, and my Intimate Hypnosis Training Center course, Hypnosis for Sex Problems, but most of the time I feel firmly affixed to the margins. And of course other people have written books, made CDs, conducted research, and so on, but as professional peers, we’re not even a micro-culture in the larger realms of sex therapy, psychology, or even sexology.

Sometimes I wonder if the spicy shenanigans of the mid-19th researchers, risque stage hypnotists, and anyone else who has tossed the not-so-strange bedfellows of sex and hypnosis (willy nilly) into the unmade bed of public opinion. It doesn’t seem to matter how many serious studies have been done on the efficacy of hypnosis for sexual concerns (see a few here) or how earnestly I blog this cause, it just seems like the hypnosis “brand” is somewhat askew.

And I wonder sometimes what to do about it, besides carry on as I do anyway.

Tell me what you think in the comments!