Ambroise-Auguste Liébeault

French physician

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June 30, 2026

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Ambroise-Auguste Liébeault was a French physician who significantly contributed to the understanding and practice of hypnosis. He worked alongside Hippolyte Bernheim, and together they proposed that hypnosis was not due to any physical forces but rather a psychological response to suggestion. Liébeault's work helped to establish hypnosis as a legitimate area of study within psychology and medicine, moving it away from earlier, more mystical explanations like mesmerism. His research focused on the power of suggestion in inducing and maintaining a hypnotic state.123

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hypnosis
History and early research
Ambroise-Auguste Liébeault, an obscure French country physician who used mesmeric techniques, drew the support of Hippolyte Bernheim, a professor of medicine at Strasbourg. Independently they had written that hypnosis involved no physical forces and no physiological processes but was a combination of psychologically mediated responses…
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Ambroise-Auguste Liébeault, an obscure French country physician who used mesmeric techniques, drew the support of Hippolyte Bernheim, a professor of medicine at Strasbourg. Independently they had written that hypnosis involved no physical forces and no physiological processes but was a combination of psychologically mediated responses…
Read More