Sigmund Freud Hypnosis Quotes & Sayings

We should make it a rule not to seek to impose hypnotic treatment on any patient. A prejudice is widespread among the public (actually supported by some eminent, but in this matter inexperienced, physicians) that hypnosis is a dangerous operation. If we sought to impose hypnosis on someone who believed this assertion, we should probably be interrupted, after no more than a few minutes, by disagreeable occurrences, which would arise from the patient's anxiety and his distressing feeling of garded as results of hypnosis. — Sigmund Freud

Anyone who sets about hypnotizing half sceptically, who may perhaps seem comical to himself in this situation, and who reveals by his expression, his voice and his bearing that he expects nothing from the experiment, will have no reason to be surprised at his failures, and should rather leave this method of treatment to other physicians who are able to practise it without feeling damaged in their medical dignity, since they have convinced themselves, by experience and reading, of the reality and importance of hypnotic influence — Sigmund Freud