Modern clinical hypnosis: from reputation to trial literature
After stage reputation and hospital theatre, hypnosis gained laboratory scales and, later, condition-specific trials. Those trials are graded elsewhere.
Last reviewed 27 August 2026
“Modern clinical hypnosis” here means the period when the field could point to standardised laboratory measures and, later, randomised clinical trials, not a claim that every contemporary practitioner works from that literature.
Key evidence
The chronicle’s hinge is Hilgard’s Stanford programme. Condition evidence pages on this wiki grade outcomes. History pages stay at M. Clinical hypnotherapy is described on the hypnotherapy pages.
Braid’s naming (1843), and the 1784 fluid test are background. They do not set a Grade A.
Limitations
Stage hypnosis still dominates public images. That reputation problem is social, not a trial result.
What we don't know yet
How to date “the modern era” for every country is arbitrary. Australia’s thin paper trail is its own page.
This page is informational only.