What Psychotherapy Missed: Mesmer, Suggestion and the Power of the Mind | Stephen Bacon скачать в хорошем качестве

What Psychotherapy Missed: Mesmer, Suggestion and the Power of the Mind | Stephen Bacon

In this short introduction, clinical psychologist Dr Stephen Bacon shares the historical story that inspired the workshop Dancing with the Abyss. The story begins with Anton Mesmer, the 18th century physician often described as the father of hypnosis. Mesmer believed that healing could occur through a mysterious force he called “animal magnetism”. When his work was investigated by a commission that included Benjamin Franklin, the commission concluded that Mesmer’s theory was incorrect and that the results were due to suggestion and expectation. Yet this raises an intriguing question. If Mesmer’s explanation was wrong, what about the remarkable results his patients experienced? And what does this tell us about the power of belief, imagination, ritual and altered states in healing? In this video, Stephen Bacon reflects on how modern psychotherapy may have turned away from some of the most powerful aspects of change. He introduces the themes of the workshop Dancing with the Abyss, which explores psychotherapy through the lenses of social constructionism, esoteric spirituality, gnosis and the Perennial Philosophy. The workshop invites practitioners to reconsider the deeper forces that shape psychological change and to explore how these can be integrated into modern therapeutic practice. Learn more about the workshop here: https://aetherandalchemy.net/event/da... About the workshop Dancing with the Abyss explores psychotherapy from a cross-cultural and constructionist perspective, examining how meaning, belief, ritual and altered states influence healing. The workshop combines conceptual exploration with experiential exercises designed to illuminate how change processes actually occur.