Hypnotic Ego-Strengthening Procedure

The Hypnotic Ego-Strengthening Procedure, including its central hypnotherapeutic monologue delivering an incremental sequence of within-hypnotic and post-hypnotic suggestions, was developed and promoted in the 1960s by British consultant psychiatrist John Heywood Hartland (1901-1977). Hartland's overall approach was based on and derived from the Self-Mastery method that French hypnotherapist Emile Coue (1857-1926) created and refined over two decades of practice, reaching its final form around 1920, and its ego-strengthening monologue was based entirely on the curative-suggestion monologue of Coue's method. Hartland used the procedure to pre-therapeutically strengthen patients' inner resources, aiming to remove tension, anxiety and apprehension and gradually restore a patient's confidence in coping with their problems before a more direct, subsequent course of symptom-removal hypnotherapy, but later found the ego-strengthening procedure could also succeed on its own as the sole form of therapy for a wide range of clinical circumstances. His 1965 article on the value of ego-strengthening procedures prior to direct symptom removal under hypnosis was significant for establishing the concept of ego-strengthening in the hypnotherapeutic literature and for introducing the convention of using an ellipsis to indicate pauses in a hypnotherapist's delivery; ego-strengthening suggestions are generally grouped into general suggestions, specific suggestions that help a patient discover and enhance their own inner coping strategies, and specific suggestions that foster a patient's sense of self-efficacy.