William Joseph Bryan

William Joseph Bryan, Jr. (1926–1977) was an American physician and a pioneering hypnotist. He was one of the founders of modern hypnotherapy and his work notably found use in psychological warfare during the Cold War.[1] He was a great-grandson of United States Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan.

For other people with the same name, see William Bryan.
Hypnosis
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Origins
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Career and work

William Joseph Bryan Jr. held an MD, JD, and PhD. He started his career as a military psychiatrist, and was involved in research for the CIA, including the Project ARTICHOKE and its successor, the Project MKUltra (popularly known as the CIA's mind control program), a research project into behavioral engineering of humans. As part of his work for the CIA, he developed techniques of what he called "hypno-conditioning." His published research from the era focused on the forensic and military range of psychological research. He would later focus on legal hypnosis.[1]

William Joseph Bryan Jr subjected Albert DeSalvo to hyponosis, under which DeSalvo confessed to the Boston Strangler murders.

On May 4, 1955, Bryan founded the American Institute of Hypnosis, and was editor o the institute's Journal of the American Institute of Hypnosis.

He is credited with creating the 'Bryan Method' of hypnoanalysis.

According to hypnosis practitioners such as Marc Aymar, Francoise Lotery and Felicia Mocanu, Bryan is recognized as one of the two central figures in the field of hypnosis during the 20th century (the other being Milton H. Erickson), and was the first full-time medical practitioner of hypnosis in the USA.

Controversy

In 1969, the California State Board of Medical Examiners found Bryan guilty of “unprofessional conduct in four cases involving sexual molesting of female patients”, and he was given five years' probation.[2]

William Turner and Jonn Christian hypothesized in The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy that Bryan was responsible for inducing Sirhan Sirhan to fire blanks at Robert F. Kennedy with posthypnotic suggestion.[3]

Death

Bryan was reportedly found dead in a Las Vegas hotel room on March 4, 1977, of a suspected heart attack, and buried in Hollywood.

Bibliography
  • Legal Aspects of Hypnosis, 1962
  • Religious Aspects of Hypnosis, 1962. Republished as Leave Something to God by Relaxed Books 1998, Winfield, IL
  • The New Self-Hypnosis, 1967 (with Paul Adams)
  • The Chosen Ones: Or, The Psychology of Jury Selection, 1971

References
  1. "William J. Bryan's Hypnotic State," in: Alison Winter: Memory. Fragments of a Modern History. University of Chicago Press, Chicago 2012, ISBN 978-0-226-90258-6, pp. 127–147.
  2. "Hypnotist guilty". Los Angeles Times. April 22, 1969. Retrieved 1 May 2023.
  3. William Turner. The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy. Random House: New York, 1978. p. 227-228
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