Herbert Spiegel
| Herbert Spiegel | |
|---|---|
| Born |
June 29, 1914 McKeesport, Pennsylvania |
| Died | December 15, 2009 (aged 95) Manhattan |
Herbert Spiegel (June 29, 1914 – December 15, 2009) was an American psychiatrist who popularized therapeutic hypnosis as a mainstream medical treatment for patients suffering from pain, anxiety and addictions. He also gained notoriety for his treatment of the woman known as Sybil, whose case became the subject of a book, 1976 television miniseries and 2007 television movie.
Herbert Spiegel was the father of David Spiegel, M.D., of Stanford University, who likewise is an expert in hypnosis.
Born in McKeesport, Pennsylvania, Spiegel attended the University of Pittsburgh and the University of Maryland Medical School. He first learned hypnosis while he was a resident at St. Elizabeths Hospital in Washington, D.C.
During World War II, Spiegel used hypnosis as a treatment for pain control while serving as a battalion surgeon with the First Infantry in North Africa. With the use of hypnosis, Spiegel was able to reduce the use of morphine in treating soldiers wounded in battle. He later wrote, "I discovered that it was possible to use persuasion and suggestion to help the men return to previous levels of function" after sustaining severe combat stress.
For many years, Spiegel was a clinical professor of psychiatry at the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University, where he continued his research and study on hypnosis and taught postgraduate courses on the subject. He was a pioneer in the use of hypnosis as a tool to help patients control pain, stop smoking, eat less, shed phobias and ease anxieties. Spiegel noted that, until the late 1930s, hypnosis had largely been the domain of "quacks," but gave credit to them for keeping the practice alive: "We are in debt to the quacks for keeping it alive until the medical community started to investigate and find out what a useful tool hypnotism is."
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