Talk :

“My only hope lies in a cure by means of hypnosis”:
Hypnosis and Homosexuality in Late Nineteenth-Century Central Europe

by
Dr. Heather Wolffram


Department of History, FASS, NUS

Date:	4pm, Wednesday 13th February
Location:	Research Clusters Meeting Room A

During the late nineteenth century a number of prominent German-speaking sexologists and psychiatrists experimented with hypnosis as a means of ‘curing’ or altering homosexual behavior. Richard von Krafft-Ebing, author of Psychopathia Sexualis and one of the first sexologists to use this technique, argued that hypnosis “is all that can really benefit the patient”. While several well-known sexologists advocated the use of suggestion for those who wished to be rid of their contrary sexuality, other prominent figures were extremely critical of its use. Magnus Hirschfeld, for example, maintained that the utility of hypnosis had been overestimated by its proponents and that its putative success was limited to those cases in which the patient was not truly homosexual. Was it ultimately the failure of hypnosis to ‘cure’ homosexuality that led to such critiques? Or, was it the epistemological, political and professional implications of using hypnosis that were problematic? In this paper I will argue the latter, highlighting the manner in which the use of hypnosis implied the acquired rather than innate nature of contrary sexuality and the political and professional consequences of such a stance.