Ambroise-Auguste Liebeault

Dr. Ambroise-Auguste Liebeault (1823-1904) is the founder of the famous Nancy School and the father of modern hypnotherapy.

The Nancy school held that hypnosis was a normal phenomenon induced by suggestion, in contrast to old schools of thought, which considered hypnotic trances as manifestations of magnetism, hysteria or psycho-physiological phenomenon.

Ambroise-Auguste Liebeault was born in Favieres, a small town in the Lorraine region of France, on September 16, 1823. He completed his medical degree in 1850 at the age of 26. He then established a practice in the village of Pont-Saint-Vincent, near the town of Nancy, France.His first book, Induced Sleep and Analogous States considered mostly from the Viewpoint of the Action of the Mind on the Body was published in 1866.

Later his institution would be converted to the Nancy School with the collaboration of Dr. Hippolyte Bernheim, a renowned professor at the Medical School in Nancy. Dr. Liebeault was heavily influenced by Abbé Faria, and, in turn, Sigmund Freud and Émile Coué came to the Nancy School to be influenced by Liebeault.

He died on February 18, 1904 at the age of 80.