User:Pier Giorgio Malesani/Gualtiero Guantieri

Gualtiero Guantieri (Verona September 9th 1927 - Verona December 20th 1994) was an Italian physician, researcher, psychotherapist, and university professor of the 20th century. His work had a significant influence on Psychosomatic Medicine and Clinical Hypnosis internationally

Guantieri e l’Ipnosi

L’ipnosi is the subject of scientific consideration and research and the clinical and pedagogical tool addressed by hypnology. According to Guantieri, hypnosis promoted by hypnology should be understood as clinical or pedagogical hypnosis. The hypnotic state it induces, when applied in these fields, consists of a collection of neuro-psycho-physiological conditions that the person reaches once the hypnotic induction has occurred.

Pedagogical and clinical hypnosis thus carves out a space where individuals can rediscover complete freedom to exist and interact, to open up to introspective experiences, to rediscover noble and lofty sentiments that arise within oneself in the presence of the grandiose, the fascinating, the ecstatic, and the sacred, or even the dreadful. However, it is essential to acquire awareness and acknowledge every human emotion, even those considered negative, such as fear or anger, disgust or sadness, so that all this translates into a more precise self-awareness and allows for a realistic, contemplative consideration of oneself and the world.

Guantieri and the ’Istituto di Ipnosi Clinica H. Bernheim[1] founded by him in 1965, considered and conceived hypnosis as the means to positively respond to the requests for support or help that individuals may address to psychosomatic medicine, pedagogy (hypnology is also pedagogical when taught to hypnology students), and therefore to their practitioners: physicians, psychologists, educators, or aware and responsible psychotherapists.

In this sense, the focus is primarily on the holistic complexity of the individual, encompassing somatic, psychological, and relational aspects, embedded within the context in which the person has grown and lives, and to which one should approach with a spirit of service.

Guantieri specified to "consider and, above all, feel the human being ... as a psychosomatic unity, an organism and a person at the same time, in intimate contact, action, and reaction with the environment ... and to look at him in a completely special way ..." that is, "not paying less attention to the body but, rather, greater attention to the psyche" (Guantieri G., Fondamenti e prospettive dell’ipnologia medica, in AA. VV., Lezioni di apertura del Corso di Aggiornamento in Ipnologia medica, Verona, 7-9 maggio 1971, Dispensa a cura dell’Istituto “H. Bernheim”, Verona, 1971, pag. 117).

He and his collaborators clarified that hypnosis pertains to the mental and emotional sphere and operates within that psychological space of free movement akin to Levin's (as Kurt Levin, 1890-1982, would say), where emotions and thoughts can expand beyond the limits of the usual.