By rigorously separating phenomena from the theories that claim to explain them, the book shows that psychotherapy does not merely discover what exists “within” us: it constructs models, metaphors, and operational fictions through which experience becomes observable and transformable.
Hypnosis thus emerges not as a marginal or mysterious technique, but as one of the great modern laboratories of consciousness.
The other mind is not hidden behind the conscious mind. It is the mind itself, caught in the act of constructing its own experience and forgetting that it has done so.

CONTENTSIntroduction: What Do We Mean by Hypnosis?Ancient Roots: Trance, Dream, and the Transformation of Experience Before HypnosisMesmer: Animal Magnetism Between the Physics of Fluids and the Power of ImaginationJames Braid: From Magnetic Fluid to the Physiology of AttentionJean-Martin Charcot: Hypnosis as an Experimental NeurosisHippolyte Bernheim: Suggestion as the Principle of HypnosisPierre Janet: Dissociation, Psychological Automatism, and Subconscious Fixed IdeasSigmund Freud: From Hypnosis to Free AssociationCarl Gustav Jung: From Hypnosis to the Autonomy of the ImageWilhelm Reich: From Character to OrgoneMilton H. Erickson: Hypnosis as the Utilization of ExperienceGregory Bateson: Cybernetics, Communication, and Levels of LearningRichard Bandler and John Grinder: Neuro-Linguistic Programming Between Modeling and Scientific MythStephen Gilligan: From Therapeutic Trance to Generative TranceThe Neuroscience of HypnosisConclusion — From Hypnosis as a Technique to Hypnosis as a Theory of the Construction of ExperienceBibliography