Magnetic somnambulism (Puységur)

1. Introduction

Version followed: the Marquis de Puységur's own account of "artificial" or "magnetic" somnambulism (Buzancy, 1784), as presented in the first full English translation of his 1784 Mémoires (Crabtree and Osei-Bonsu, eds., Routledge, 2025) and in Adam Crabtree's historical essay for Harvard's Center for the Study of World Religions (2026); reception history from Ceci (2019). Where later magnetisers or modern "mesmerists" differ, this is said. [source: Routledge 2025 publisher page; Crabtree 2026; Ceci 2019]

What it was. A historical healing practice, not a current school of therapy. Armand-Marie-Jacques de Chastenet, Marquis de Puységur (1751–1825), a French aristocrat and amateur scientist, attended Franz Anton Mesmer's teaching in Paris in 1784 and then tried animal magnetism on household staff, tenants and neighbours at his estate at Buzancy, near Soissons. With a young farm worker on the estate (named in the historical literature) he obtained not Mesmer's convulsive "crisis" but a calm, sleep-like state in which the patient talked fluently, seemed to answer the magnetiser's unspoken thoughts, and forecast the course of his own illness. Puységur called this artificial or magnetic somnambulism. [source: Crabtree 2026; Ceci 2019, p. 62]

Core idea of how change happens (as Puységur held it). Healing came from a life force he called "Nature"; the magnetiser's focused will and intention (rather than Mesmer's universal physical fluid) induced the somnambulistic state; in that state, through a special bond with the magnetiser ("rapport"), the patient could perceive, diagnose and prescribe for his own illness and that of others. Ceci describes this as a shift from Mesmer's physical theory towards a psychological one. [source: Crabtree 2026; Ceci 2019, p. 62]

Why it matters to a psychotherapist. Historians place Puységur at the root of hypnosis and of the line of thought on divided consciousness that runs through Pierre Janet's "dissociation" and "subconscious acts" to modern dissociative-disorder concepts; Henri Ellenberger's The Discovery of the Unconscious (1970) traces dynamic psychiatry "through the exorcists, magnetists, and hypnotists" to Janet, Adler, Jung and Freud. Details of Ellenberger's own treatment of Puységur [uncertain: not verified]. Cross-refer Domain VI 081 (Braid's hypnotism) and VI 082 (Nancy school), XIV 081 (Mesmer and the 1784 Royal Commission) and XIV 083 (magnetic healing, written in XVI). [source: Crabtree 2026; Basic Books/HBG description of Ellenberger 1970]

Evidence status (one line). Mesmer's magnetic fluid was rejected by the two 1784 French commissions; the claimed thought-reading and clairvoyant faculties failed the one documented controlled test (1814), and modern magnetic "passes" have no identified biological basis or demonstrated effect; the calm trance and suggestibility Puységur described are what later became hypnosis. [source: Ceci 2019, pp. 62, 66; Allo Docteurs 2025]

What is practised today, by whom, and how it reaches clients.

• French magnétiseurs and guérisseurs: practitioners who make hand "passes" said to circulate and rebalance energy; sessions cost roughly €40–70. A 2023 sociological study describes people leaving other careers to practise, work that draws on "energy" and sometimes spirits, and decades of prosecutions for illegal practice of medicine; it also observed magnetism alongside oncology-radiotherapy. [source: Allo Docteurs 2025; Charrasse 2023, book description]
• "Mesmerism" trainings: workshops, online modules and hybrid courses (from a weekend to longer certifications) teaching low-verbal, gaze-based or touch-based inductions under the mesmerism label; some independent practitioners advertise "magnetic passes", "fascination" and "vital" energy work, one-to-one sessions, retreats and online videos. These usually do not invoke Puységur by name. [source: MedicalResearch.com 2026; Trebuchet 2013 interview]
• Hypnosis trainings and literature: the word "somnambulism" survives in hypnosis teaching for a deep trance with amnesia [uncertain: not verified in a primary training source]; Puységur's text now reaches readers through the 2025 Routledge translation in a psychoanalytic-history series. [source: Routledge 2025]
• Spiritist and Spiritualist lineages: Crabtree records that itinerant magnetic demonstrations fed Allan Kardec's Spiritism and American Spiritualism, and that some magnetisers saw somnambulists as hosts to benevolent spirits; clients may meet the somnambulist-as-medium idea there (cross-refer XIV 100). [source: Crabtree 2026]

2. Framework

This is a historical practice, so the framework has two layers: (A) the course of treatment as Puységur documented it, so the therapist can recognise its echoes; (B) the psychotherapist's own work when a client encounters magnetism, mesmerism or somnambulist ideas today. Layer B is [synthesis], built on the cited assessment tools.

A. The historical course (Buzancy, 1784 onward)

1. Learning and first trials (spring 1784). Puységur, earlier a member of Mesmer's Société de l'harmonie in Paris, returned to Buzancy and treated estate staff and neighbours, first for toothache, using magnetic passes. Locals gathered under a large elm by the château, where he began testing Mesmer's methods. [source: Crabtree 2026; Ceci 2019, p. 62]
2. The founding case (May 1784). A 23-year-old farm worker, bedridden with chest congestion, a stitch, blood-spitting and fever, was magnetised one evening; Puységur had him imagine a festive scene, games and dancing, then saw that he was fed and allowed to sleep; he was described as well after three days. [source: Crabtree 2026]
3. Session elements as described: passes; the magnetiser's concentrated will and intention; attention to the patient's mental and emotional state and surroundings; directed imaginative activity; a clearly stated goal (Puységur held that vague intentions produced convulsions and disorganised action, and his patients stayed calm, unlike Mesmer's); rest and simple food; detailed notes. [source: Crabtree 2026]
4. Moving between "stages" (Puységur's markers). He distinguished "complete" somnambulism, marked by full amnesia on waking and a "sleep of the senses" in which the subject attended only to the magnetiser and those placed in rapport, from "incomplete" somnambulism, where the subject partly noticed bystanders and remembered some of the state. Amnesia was treated as the reliable sign of the complete state. [source: Crabtree 2026]
5. Using the state. Somnambulists were asked to diagnose and prescribe for themselves and others in rapport, and Puységur accepted their diagnoses and remedies. [source: Crabtree 2026]
6. Documentation and publicity. Observations were signed by patients and witnessed before a notary; the Mémoires (1784, first circulated restrictively), Suite des mémoires (1785), a combined edition (1786) and Recherches (1811) followed; demonstrations became fashionable in aristocratic circles while academic physicians dismissed magnetisers and some churchmen called the practice diabolical. [source: Ceci 2019, pp. 63–64; Crabtree 2026; Wood Library-Museum catalogue]
7. Tests and spread. From 1812 Puységur sought a trial with deaf pupils at Sicard's Paris institute; a 1814 attempt by a relative was described as disappointing, with no thought-reading. By 1826 Mialle documented more than two hundred magnetic practitioners; Elliotson and Esdaile promoted magnetism for surgical anaesthesia until ether (1847); Braid (1840s) reframed the phenomena as "hypnotism" through fixed gaze, fatigue and suggestion; Janet developed dissociation concepts on this base. [source: Ceci 2019, pp. 65–66, 75; Crabtree 2026]

Typical session count and format: none is given in the sources [uncertain].

B. The psychotherapist's work today [synthesis]

No session counts are given; pace by the client. [synthesis]

3. Guiding principles

Principles of the historical practice (as documented; to understand, not to adopt):

• Will and intention over fluid. Puységur located the active force in the magnetiser's will. Practical meaning: a client's account may centre on the practitioner's power; listen for that. [source: Ceci 2019, p. 62; Wood Library-Museum catalogue note on the "will"]
• Rapport. The somnambulist responds to the magnetiser and to those the magnetiser admits. Practical meaning: expect intense attachment to a practitioner and treat it as a relational fact to explore. [source: Crabtree 2026]
• Calm rather than crisis. Puységur thought Mesmer's convulsive crises unnecessary. Practical meaning: clients may value magnetism for a felt calm; take that experience seriously. [source: Ceci 2019, p. 62]
• "Nature" heals; the somnambulist knows. Diagnoses and remedies from the somnambulist were accepted. Practical meaning: this is the point of greatest risk today, where a trance-state pronouncement could replace medical diagnosis. [source: Crabtree 2026]
• Witnessed observation. Signed, notarised records. Practical meaning: clients may cite testimonials as proof; explore rather than debate. [source: Ceci 2019, p. 64]

Principles for the psychotherapist:

• The therapist is not a magnetiser, mesmerist, medium or healer in therapy. Practical meaning: no passes, no "magnetic" inductions, no somnambulist consultations for clients. [synthesis]
• Attribute, do not adjudicate. Describe magnetism, "energy" and clairvoyance as the client's tradition holds them; give evidence status once if asked, then return to the client's goals. [synthesis]
• Meaning before mechanism. Ask what the experience did for the client before asking whether it "worked". [synthesis]
• Respect religion and culture. APA Principle E asks for awareness of and respect for cultural, individual and role differences including religion, and for keeping one's biases out of the work. Practical meaning: no ridicule of magnétiseurs or their clients. [source: APA Ethics Code]
• Competence. Practise only within your competence, including diversity-related knowledge. Practical meaning: anyone offering clinical hypnosis needs recognised training; refer otherwise. [source: APA Ethics Code; synthesis]
• Established knowledge. Work rests on established scientific and professional knowledge. Practical meaning: no magnetic or clairvoyant procedures in therapy. [source: APA Ethics Code; synthesis]
• Medical care first. Practical meaning: confirm that symptoms have been medically assessed; never advise on starting, stopping or changing medicines; any decision about treatment goes to the treating physician. [synthesis]
• Non-pathologising differential. Practical meaning: belief in magnetism is not a symptom; assess dissociation, psychosis, mania, OCD and grief on their own clinical features. [synthesis]
• Suggestion awareness. Practical meaning: trance-state "knowledge" and memories are shaped by suggestion; do not elicit or validate them (cross-refer VI 110). [synthesis]
• No multiple roles that impair objectivity or risk exploitation. APA Ethics Code 3.05. Practical meaning: a therapist who also practises magnetism keeps it fully separate from therapy and does not recruit clients to it. [source: APA Ethics Code]
• Informed consent. Practical meaning: explain the nature of therapy, including that it does not include magnetism or energy work. [source: APA Ethics Code; synthesis]
• Client-led community involvement. Practical meaning: contact a Spiritist centre, practitioner or family only if the client wishes and consents. [synthesis]

4. Intervention inventory

Part A lists the procedures of the historical practice, described as historians document them so that the therapist can recognise them in a client's account. They are energy-healing and trance procedures of their tradition: a public outline only is given, never steps for performing them, and none is for use in therapy. Part B gives the psychotherapist's interventions. [source for Part A: Crabtree 2026; Ceci 2019]

Part A. Historical procedures (recognition only)

A1. Magnetic passes

• Purpose and context: In Mesmer's doctrine, passes restored the flow of a universal fluid whose obstruction caused illness; Puységur kept passes but put the weight on the magnetiser's will. Crabtree describes flowing hand gestures over the body, the magnetiser imagining himself as a magnet with his hands as poles and concentrating on healing. Today's French magnétiseurs describe codified passes said to circulate and rebalance energy. [source: Ceci 2019, p. 61; Crabtree 2026; Allo Docteurs 2025]
• Steps: Not given (public outline only).
• Example language when a client describes passes (illustrative): "What did you notice in your body while the practitioner's hands were moving? What did you make of that afterwards?"
• Watch for: touch without clear consent; the client crediting the practitioner rather than medical care for changes in a physical illness; repeated paid sessions with no review. Working sign: the client can describe the experience and its meaning while keeping medical decisions with their doctor. [synthesis]

A2. Induction of magnetic sleep and rapport

• Purpose and context: To bring the patient into a calm "magnetic sleep" resembling natural sleepwalking, with a bond (rapport) by which the subject responds to the magnetiser and to those the magnetiser admits, but not to others. Puységur listed seven features in the founding case: sleep-waking state, rapport, heightened imagination (suggestibility), amnesia for the state with continuous memory across sessions, apparent thought-reading, self-diagnosis, and a change of personality towards alertness and confidence. He wrote of the patient: "je pense devant lui, et il m'entend, me répond" (I think in front of him, and he hears me, answers me). [source: Crabtree 2026; Ceci 2019, p. 62]
• Steps: Not given (public outline only). Modern hypnotic induction belongs to clinical hypnosis training (cross-refer VI 081, VI 082).
• Example language (illustrative): "You said you felt you couldn't hear anyone but her. How was that for you then, and how is it now, looking back?"
• Watch for: amnesia or lost time after sessions, ongoing derealisation, a sense that the practitioner can read or steer one's thoughts, distress on separation from the practitioner. Working sign: the client experiences rapport as something to reflect on, not something that governs them. [synthesis]

A3. Directed imaginative activity

• Purpose and context: In the founding case Puységur had the patient imagine a festive scene, games and dancing; the patient hummed and danced to a tune Puységur only hummed in his own mind. Crabtree lists having patients move, exert themselves and imagine activities among Puységur's procedures, together with stating a clear goal so that the session did not slide into convulsive or disorganised action. [source: Crabtree 2026]
• Steps: Not given (historical record only).
• Example language (illustrative): "It sounds as if imagining something joyful made a real difference to how you felt. Shall we look at how imagery might help with what you're facing now, in a way you stay in charge of?"
• Watch for: imagery-based work in therapy belongs to established protocols with consent; do not reproduce trance-based imaginative direction. Working sign: the client links the experience to their own resources rather than to the practitioner's power. [synthesis]

A4. Somnambulist self-diagnosis and prescription

• Purpose and context: Somnambulists were asked to diagnose and prescribe for themselves and for others in rapport; Puységur accepted these diagnoses and remedies and attributed them to "Nature". He proposed that complete somnambulists were "clairvoyant" through a hidden sense. Some later magnetisers took the somnambulist as a host for spirits, a line that fed Spiritism and Spiritualism. Evidence status: the 1814 thought-reading test with a deaf pupil failed; clairvoyant diagnosis is not supported. [source: Crabtree 2026; Ceci 2019, p. 66]
• Steps: Not given (public outline only).
• Example language (illustrative): "The person in trance told you the illness would clear by itself. What did your doctor say, and how do you hold those two things together?"
• Watch for: a trance-state or "medium" pronouncement replacing a medical diagnosis or delaying investigation; remedies given in this way (no advice on any remedy or medicine; route to the physician or pharmacist, or poison control for any ingestion concern). Working sign: medical assessment is in place. [synthesis]

A5. Rest, diet and setting

• Purpose and context: After the founding session the patient was fed bouillon, bread and soup and allowed to sleep; Puységur attended to surroundings, and healing gatherings took place outdoors under an elm by the château. [source: Crabtree 2026]
• Steps: Not applicable (historical record).
• Example language (illustrative): "Part of what helped may have been being cared for and allowed to rest. Where do you get that kind of care now?"
• Watch for: romanticising the past setting as proof of the method; use it instead to identify current supports. [synthesis]

A6. Witnessed records and public demonstration

• Purpose and context: Observations were signed by patients and witnessed before a notary; demonstrations circulated in aristocratic society; Puységur later sought a formal trial at a deaf institute and offered to retract his claims if it failed. [source: Ceci 2019, pp. 63–65]
• Steps: Not applicable (historical record).
• Example language (illustrative): "Testimonials clearly meant a lot to you in choosing this. What would tell you, in your own life, whether it is helping?"
• Watch for: testimonials and demonstrations used today to sell courses or sessions; treat as a cue to review costs and expectations. [synthesis]

Part B. The psychotherapist's interventions

Unless a source is tagged, Part B is [synthesis] built on the cited tools and ethics standards.

B1. Client-led exploration of meaning

• Purpose and when to use: Whenever a client mentions a magnétiseur, mesmerism, "magnetic sleep", a somnambulist or medium, or reads Puységur. Establishes what the experience means before any assessment.
• Steps: (1) Ask permission to explore it. (2) Use the client's own words ("magnétiseur", "passes", "energy", "trance"). (3) Ask what led them there, what happened, what they felt during and after, and what changed. (4) Ask what it means about their illness, relationships or spiritual life. (5) Reflect back without endorsing or disputing the mechanism. (6) Agree whether and how it will be part of therapy.
• Example language (illustrative): "Would it be all right to hear more about the sessions with the magnétiseur? I'm interested in what they were like for you, not in judging them."
• Watch for: the client checking for ridicule; shame about "believing"; over-agreement. Working sign: the client talks freely and links the experience to their own goals.

B2. Cultural Formulation Interview with supplementary modules

• Purpose and when to use: Early assessment when magnetism, Spiritism or related practice shapes how the client understands their problem. The DSM-5-TR CFI has 16 questions in four domains (cultural definition of the problem; perceptions of cause, context and support; self-coping and past help-seeking; current help-seeking). Supplementary modules include Explanatory Model, Spirituality, Religion and Moral Traditions, Coping and Help-Seeking, and Caregivers. [source: APA CFI and Supplementary Modules]
• Steps: (1) Use the core CFI in your own phrasing or as published. (2) Add the Explanatory Model module (client's ideas of cause and mechanism, e.g. blocked "energy"). (3) Add the Spirituality, Religion and Moral Traditions module: traditions identified with, family background, involvement, how they help coping, whether they add to the problem, distress, discrimination or conflict. [source: APA CFI Supplementary Modules] (4) Record past help-seeking, including magnétiseurs, hypnotists and doctors, and current preferences. (5) Summarise the formulation back to the client.
• Example language (illustrative): "How would you explain what's been happening to your health, in your own words? And where do the sessions with the practitioner fit in?"
• Watch for: the client fearing the therapist will tell their doctor or family; reassure about confidentiality and its limits. Working sign: a shared, respectful formulation.

B3. Differential assessment without pathologising belief

• Purpose and when to use: When the account includes lost time, trance, thought-reading, voices, spirits or unusual perceptions.
• Steps: (1) Separate belief and cultural practice from symptoms: belief in magnetism or clairvoyance is not itself a sign of disorder. (2) Screen for dissociation (amnesia outside sessions, depersonalisation, derealisation, identity disruption), psychosis (fixed beliefs beyond the client's community's norms, hallucinations outside practice contexts, functional decline), mania (reduced need for sleep, grandiosity about healing gifts), OCD (compulsive checking for "energy", magical rituals driven by fear) and grief (seeking contact with the dead). (3) Ask whether others in the client's tradition would see the experience as usual. (4) Note natural sleepwalking or other parasomnias for medical assessment if reported. (5) Where the issue is spiritual distress without disorder, ICD-10-CM Z65.8 "Other specified problems related to psychosocial circumstances" includes "Religious or spiritual problem". [source: Unbound Medicine ICD-10-CM Z65.8] DSM-5-TR wording for the corresponding category [uncertain: not verified].
• Example language (illustrative): "Some people feel very spaced out or lose time after trance experiences. Has anything like that happened outside the sessions?"
• Watch for: confirmation bias in either direction. Working sign: a clear distinction between valued experience and symptoms needing care; refer to psychiatry if psychosis or mania is suspected.

B4. Medical-care safety check and coordination

• Purpose and when to use: Whenever magnetism or a somnambulist or medium's "diagnosis" concerns a physical illness. Puységur's practice accepted trance-state diagnoses and remedies (see A4); today magnetism is sometimes seen alongside cancer treatment. [source: Crabtree 2026; Charrasse 2023, book description]
• Steps: (1) Ask whether the symptoms have been medically assessed and whether the client is following medical treatment. (2) If magnetism is used alongside medical care, note it neutrally; it is not a treatment for any physical disease. (3) Never advise on starting, stopping or changing any medicine or remedy. (4) Encourage the client to tell their doctor about all practices, with consent offer to liaise. (5) If a remedy is being ingested and there is concern, route to the physician, pharmacist or poison control.
• Example language (illustrative): "I'm glad the sessions help you feel calmer. Does your oncologist know about them? Decisions about your treatment are best made with them."
• Watch for: delayed investigations, missed appointments, a practitioner discouraging medical care. Working sign: medical care continues and the client discusses all practices openly with the doctor.

B5. Adverse-effects review

• Purpose and when to use: After magnetiser, mesmerism or trance sessions, courses or demonstrations.
• Steps: (1) Ask about sleep, anxiety, dissociative after-effects, intrusive images, and feelings of being controlled. (2) Ask about touch: was it explained and agreed, and could the client stop it? Touch-based methods require explicit consent and trauma sensitivity. [source: MedicalResearch.com 2026] (3) Ask about sessions held alone in private settings and any boundary crossing. (4) Rate severity and plan grounding, medical or psychiatric follow-up. (5) If abuse is disclosed, follow safeguarding and reporting duties and support the client's choices about police or regulator contact.
• Example language (illustrative): "Sometimes these sessions leave people unsettled. How have you been sleeping, and has anything felt odd since?"
• Watch for: derealisation persisting beyond the session; fear of the practitioner. Working sign: after-effects fade and the client feels in control.

B6. Suggestion and memory caution

• Purpose and when to use: When a trance or "lucid somnambulist" session has produced claimed knowledge: diagnoses, memories, messages, past-life material. Rapport and heightened suggestibility were already noted by Puységur. [source: Crabtree 2026]
• Steps: (1) Do not induce trance to retrieve or test such material. (2) Explain that trance states raise suggestibility and that confidence in an image is not evidence of its accuracy. (3) Work with the material's emotional meaning, not its truth value. (4) Cross-refer Domain VI 110 for regression and false memory.
• Example language (illustrative): "In trance, the mind is very open to suggestion, so what came up may be more about feelings than facts. What feels important about it?"
• Watch for: new "memories" of abuse or past lives emerging from sessions; family accusations based on them. Working sign: the client holds the material tentatively.

B7. Dependency and financial review

• Purpose and when to use: When the client attends repeated paid sessions or buys courses or certifications. Typical prices: magnetism sessions about €40–70; mesmerism courses from a few hundred to low thousands of dollars; certificates are often unregulated. [source: Allo Docteurs 2025; MedicalResearch.com 2026]
• Steps: (1) Map frequency, spend and who decides when to return. (2) Look for red flags named in consumer guidance: guaranteed cures or income, secret techniques, implied official status, unclear refund policies. [source: MedicalResearch.com 2026] (3) Explore the rapport with the practitioner: can the client disagree or stop? (4) Agree the client's own limits.
• Example language (illustrative): "How do you decide when to book another session? What would happen if you stopped for a while?"
• Watch for: debt, secrecy, isolation from family, the practitioner as sole authority. Working sign: the client sets limits and keeps choices.

B8. Psychoeducation through history

• Purpose and when to use: When a client is curious about, or frightened by, magnetic sleep or mesmerism; or when hypnosis is being considered clinically.
• Steps: (1) Offer a brief history: Puységur's calm trance, Braid's reframing as hypnotism through attention and suggestion, Janet's dissociation concepts. [source: Crabtree 2026] (2) Explain that modern clinical hypnosis does not depend on magnetism or energy. (3) If hypnosis is clinically indicated, refer to a practitioner with recognised clinical training (cross-refer VI 081, VI 082).
• Example language (illustrative): "Historically, what started as 'magnetic sleep' became what we now call hypnosis, understood as focused attention and suggestion rather than a force passing between people."
• Watch for: the explanation being heard as dismissal of a valued experience; pair it with B1.

B9. Boundaries and the therapist's role

• Purpose and when to use: When a client asks the therapist to magnetise, mesmerise or put them into somnambulism, or when the therapist also practises such work.
• Steps: (1) Decline clearly and warmly. (2) Explain informed consent to therapy and what therapy includes. [source: APA Ethics Code; synthesis] (3) Keep any separate practice of the therapist's entirely apart, never recruit clients to it, and avoid multiple relationships that risk impaired objectivity or exploitation. [source: APA Ethics Code 3.05] (4) Limit self-disclosure about personal beliefs to what serves the client.
• Example language (illustrative): "That's not something I do in therapy. What I can do is help you think through what you're hoping it would give you."
• Watch for: client disappointment; treat as material.

B10. Referral and community liaison

• Purpose and when to use: For medical, psychiatric, clinical-hypnosis, legal, financial or community needs.
• Steps: (1) Identify the need. (2) Choose the right route: physician; psychiatrist; clinician trained in clinical hypnosis; a consumer or legal adviser for disputes over fees; police or regulator for abuse. (3) With consent, involve family or a Spiritist centre or other community figure the client trusts. (4) Follow up.
• Example language (illustrative): "Would it help if someone you trust from your community joined a conversation about this?"
• Watch for: referral felt as rejection. Working sign: the referral is taken up or knowingly declined.

5. Handling problems

The historical sources do not address modern therapy problems; all guidance below is [synthesis] unless tagged.

• Client asks the therapist to magnetise them or induce "magnetic sleep". Decline warmly (B9); explore what they hope for (calm, relief, contact with something larger); offer in-scope work, and refer for clinical hypnosis if indicated (B8).
• Magnetism or a trance-state "diagnosis" is replacing medical care. Treat as a safety priority (B4): ask directly about investigations and treatment; avoid an argument about efficacy; encourage disclosure to the physician; with consent, liaise. Echo the historical record without lecturing: Puységur's practice took trance-state diagnoses at face value, and that is where risk lies. [source: Crabtree 2026]
• Stuck: the client returns repeatedly to whether magnetism is "real". Give the evidence status once, attributed (Section 1), then ask what would change in their life whichever way the answer fell. Return to the goals.
• Resistance: the client expects the therapist to be dismissive. Name the respect openly (APA Principle E); ask about past experiences of being judged by doctors or family; slow down. [source: APA Ethics Code]
• Overwhelm after a trance, mesmerism workshop or demonstration (derealisation, panic, feeling controlled). Ground in the present with ordinary orienting conversation; check sleep and safety; assess for dissociation, psychosis or mania (B3); arrange urgent psychiatric or medical review if acute; advise pausing further sessions until reviewed.
• Strong attachment to a practitioner ("rapport"). Explore the relationship as Puységur's own concept describes it: a bond in which the subject attends to one person. [source: Crabtree 2026] Help the client notice whether they can disagree, miss a session or ask about fees (B7).
• Non-adherence to therapy because the practitioner discourages it. Ask what the practitioner said; avoid a contest of authorities; identify what the client values in each; keep medical care central.
• Rupture: the therapist's history lesson felt like mockery. Acknowledge it, repair ("I came across as dismissing something that matters to you"), return to B1.
• Trance-derived memories or messages (past lives, spirits, abuse). Apply B6; do not test or deepen them; cross-refer VI 110; if the material leads to accusations or family rupture, slow down and support the client in holding it tentatively.
• Grief and contact with the dead through a somnambulist or medium. Crabtree records that somnambulism fed the medium traditions of Spiritism and Spiritualism. [source: Crabtree 2026] Work with the grief itself; review costs and dependence on paid sittings (B7); cross-refer XIV 100.
• Touch or sexual boundary concerns about a practitioner. Believe and support; follow safeguarding and mandatory-reporting rules in your jurisdiction; inform the client of police and regulator routes; do not name or investigate the practitioner yourself.
• Children brought to magnetisers or mesmerists. Ask what the child's condition is and whether it has been medically assessed; a magnetism label never replaces paediatric, ADHD, autism or other assessment; seek the child's assent and the parents' consent for any intervention; escalate under child-protection procedures if medical care is being refused or delayed to the child's harm.
• The client is a magnétiseur or mesmerist in training. Explore their vocation and its meaning; discuss scope (no medical diagnosis or treatment claims), consent for touch, and fees; note that many certificates are unregulated. [source: MedicalResearch.com 2026; Allo Docteurs 2025]
• Family conflict over the client's use of magnetism. With consent, offer a family meeting; use the CFI Caregivers module to understand relatives' views. [source: APA CFI Supplementary Modules]
• The therapist personally believes in or practises magnetism. Keep it outside therapy, take it to supervision, avoid self-disclosure that pulls the client towards the practice (APA 3.05). [source: APA Ethics Code]

Sources

• Artificial Somnambulism and Hypnotism (Adam Crabtree, Center for the Study of World Religions, Harvard Divinity School, 2026)
• The Marquis de Puységur, Artificial Somnambulism, and the Discovery of the Unconscious Mind: Memoirs to Serve the History and Establishment of Animal Magnetism (Crabtree and Osei-Bonsu, eds., Routledge, 2025): publisher page
• Ceci, A. (2019). Deaf-mutism and Savagery Through the Lens of Animal Magnetism in France during the Early Nineteenth Century. Cromohs 22
• Wood Library-Museum: Chastenet de Puységur, Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire et à l'établissement du magnétisme animal (1786) and Suite des mémoires (1785), catalogue record
• Ellenberger, The Discovery of the Unconscious: The History and Evolution of Dynamic Psychiatry (Basic Books): publisher page
• Guérisseurs : qui sont-ils et que font-ils ? (Allo Docteurs, updated 2025)
• Mesmerism Training: History, Techniques, and What to Know (MedicalResearch.com, 2026)
• Mesmerism Revisited: practitioner interview (Trebuchet magazine, 2013)
• DSM-5-TR Cultural Formulation Interview (American Psychiatric Association)
• DSM-5 Cultural Formulation Interview Supplementary Modules (American Psychiatric Association)
• ICD-10-CM Z65.8, Other specified problems related to psychosocial circumstances (includes 'Religious or spiritual problem'), https://www.unboundmedicine.com/icd/view/ICD-10-CM/945432/all/Z65_8___Other_specified_problems_related_to_psychosocial_circumstances
• APA Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct

Books cited:

• Puységur, A.-M.-J. de Chastenet (1784/2025). Memoirs to Serve the History and Establishment of Animal Magnetism, trans. and ed. A. Crabtree and S. Osei-Bonsu. Routledge (History of Psychoanalysis series).
• Ellenberger, H. F. (1970). The Discovery of the Unconscious: The History and Evolution of Dynamic Psychiatry. Basic Books.
• Charrasse, F. (2023). Le retour du monde magique : magnétisme et paradoxes de la modernité. Les Empêcheurs de penser en rond.