The Amsterdam Suggestive Psychotherapy Clinic.

A sample of case histories that illustrate the work of the Amsterdam Suggestive Psychotherapy Clinic (1887-1893) taken from my translation of the classic French text Psycho-Thérapie-Communications statistiques, Observations Cliniques Nouvelles and previously only available in that language, is presented and contextualised here. The founding physicians, Albert Willem Van Renterghem and Frederik Van Eeden, hoped to revolutionise medical practice with the methodical application of hypnotic suggestion. It is concluded that their ambitions were a lost cause by the turn of the century.