The Chicago School of Psychology was founded by Dr. Herbert A. Parkyn in June 1896, and was the first institution in the United States to teach the scientific and clinical application of Suggestive Therapeutics and Hypnotism. Emerging at a time when hypnosis was still regarded by many as a curiosity or stage performance, the school established a disciplined, medical approach to the subject and became the principal American center for experimentation in hypnotic suggestion. Its methods were rooted in the system of the Nancy School in France but expanded far beyond it through extensive clinical testing and practical application.
A central feature of the Chicago School was the free public clinic where students and physicians treated patients solely through verbal suggestion, without the use of drugs. These sessions demonstrated the practical results of suggestive therapeutics and provided the experimental basis for the school's teaching. The school was recognized as the parent institution of suggestive therapeutics in America and oversaw dozens of affiliated schools across the United States and Canada. More than a thousand students were trained and conferred the degree of Doctor of Psychology by the school, about one-third of them women, as well as several African American graduates.
Many of its graduates went on to found their own affiliated schools or became influential teachers, writers, and practitioners in the emerging New Thought and New Psychology movements. Among some of the most notable were, William Walker Atkinson, Sydney Blanshard Flower, Stanley Lefevre Krebs, and E. Virgil Neal. Through their writings, lectures, and founding of new learning and clinical centers, the many graduates of the Chicago School of Psychology carried its methods and philosophy across the United States, making it a central source from which modern suggestive therapeutics and early applied psychology in America developed.
Founding and organization The Chicago School of Psychology was established by Dr. Herbert Arthur Parkyn, a highly trained Canadian physician who united his formal medical study with a deep interest in the power of the mind. After earning his medical degree from Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, in 1892, he completed postgraduate studies at McGill University and the University of Toronto, where he began exploring hypnotism and the developing science of suggestion. A distinguished college athlete in both football and hockey, Parkyn carried the same focus and discipline into his medical and psychological work. In 1894, he moved to Minneapolis to collaborate with Dr. W. Xavier Sudduth, the Dean of the Dental School at the University of Minnesota, on pioneering experiments in hypnosis and suggestive therapeutics. Together they secured permission from the university's president to begin conducting hypnosis experiments within the medical department's daily clinics. This would be the first public clinic in the country to use hypnosis in its treatments. This partnership and research led directly to the founding of the Chicago School of Psychology.CULTIVATING A“CHAIRSIDE MANNER”: DENTAL HYPNOSIS, PATIENT MANAGEMENT PSYCHOLOGY, AND THE ORIGINS OF BEHAVIORAL DENTISTRY IN AMERICA, 1890–1910 pg 239
The school was financed by his father James Parkyn, who had relocated from Toronto to Chicago in early 1896 with his wife and two daughters to support Herbert's enterprise. The family resided in the upper floors of the school building, and James Parkyn served as president of the school. The school was later incorporated in March, 1897.
Sydney Blanshard Flower, a close associate of Parkyn and his co-author on Hypnotism Up to Date in 1895,Hypnotism Up to Date book by Sydney Flower and Dr. Herbert A. Parkyn.png served as secretary, publicist, and business manager of the Chicago School while also editing its affiliated journal, The Hypnotic Magazine. Flower would later become one of the leading publishers in the New Thought movement. The magazine functioned as the unofficial organ of the school and was the earliest American periodical devoted to scientific hypnotism and suggestive therapeutics. Each issue included detailed reports from Parkyn on his most recent clinical cases, documenting the application of suggestion in treating physical and nervous disorders. These regular case records became an important resource for physicians and students throughout the world by providing systematic evidence of the practical results achievable through psychological treatment based on suggestion.The Chicago School of Psychology and Hypnotic magazine 1895-1910The Chicago School of Psychology quickly earned recognition for its professionalism and scientific integrity, setting itself apart from the more sensational portrayals of hypnotism common at the time. Instruction emphasized the practical application of suggestive therapeutics as a legitimate branch of medical science. The school taught that the mind could influence every bodily function and that health depended on maintaining harmony between mental focus and physical processes. Through careful use of suggestion, recovery could be achieved by directing thought to restore the body's natural equilibrium.
Core Principles The core principles of the Chicago School of Psychology, as outlined by Parkyn in 1896, centered on the idea that the effectiveness of all healing systems rests on a single foundation: "the power of the mind to help itself, and so to help the body." This power was identified as an inherent human faculty, "a part of the divine nature which is every man’s birthright," and notes that it operates independently of religious belief, being "as perfect in the atheist as in the religious fanatic."The Chicago School of Psychology mission statement pamphlet, 1896 by Dr. Herbert A. Parkyn
The Chicago School taught that suggestion was effective only when the patient's mind was in harmony with the treatment, explaining that failures occur when mental receptivity or confidence is lacking or when a disorder is genuinely physical and requires direct medical or material intervention. This point was emphasized to make clear that the Chicago School was not opposed to pharmaceuticals or conventional medical treatment when such measures were genuinely needed.
"Aaron’s rod" of medical science
Suggestive Therapeutics was described as "the Aaron’s rod of medical science," asserting that psychology is present in every effective system of healing and that no method of treatment is complete without an understanding of mental law. Parkyn criticizes both traditional physicians for neglecting the body's natural recuperative force and metaphysical healers for rejecting the legitimate use of medicine, stating that "the wise man is he who bends all things to his service in the evolution of good."
The purpose of the Chicago School of Psychology is outlined as teaching patients the practical use of their own mental forces, stating that the school instructs individuals on "how to heal themselves" by placing the body in the right mental condition for nature to complete recovery. The school emphasized that mental power alone is not relied upon in every case, giving the example that if "a man’s hand were dirty, all the faith in the world would not cleanse it" and that physical means remain necessary. Similarly, the body is compared to an electric railway in which the brain is the dynamo and the organs the streetcars; if the trouble lies in the dynamo, psychological treatment is required, but if the obstruction is mechanical, then local physical treatment must be used, stating that "psychology and medicine together are well nigh invincible, and the one acts as a support and a stay to the other."
Curriculum and certification
The school offered structured courses in suggestion-based therapeutic methods, attracting students from across the country. Each month's course consisted of twelve lectures and six clinic sessions, with additional clinical instruction provided during patient treatment. Students at the school consisted mostly of practicing physicians, dentists, and educators, who wished to study psychological treatment methods that did not rely on pharmaceuticals.
The "free" public clinic A central feature of the institution was its free public clinic, which operated three mornings a week. Patients attended from Chicago and distant cities, as well as visiting physicians who often observed or brought their own chronic cases. The clinic averaged twenty-five patients per session. All cases were treated exclusively through verbal suggestion, with no concurrent use of medicine or electricity. Clinic records showed high success rates. Treatments were conducted using verbal suggestion, with the patient seated or reclined, and usually without the use of deep hypnosis. Emphasis was placed on the use of "normal" or waking suggestion.Suggestive Therapeutics Magazine V5 Aug 1900
Instruction
Instruction at the clinic was hands-on, with students observing live treatments and participating in discussions of diagnoses and suggested interventions. The operating room was designed to create a quiet, chapel-like atmosphere with dim lighting that was most conducive in achieving a highly suggestible state. The treatments were typically delivered in a tone described as steady and prayer-like, aiming to evoke physical and mental relaxation. The methodology differed markedly from the more dramatic techniques of stage hypnotists or earlier schools of mesmerism. Instead of focusing on trance like somnambulistic displays, the Chicago School emphasized a clinical, rational process to induce a suggestible state.
Unlike older methods of hypnosis involving eye-fixation or physical manipulations, the school's approach was subtle and respectful, inducing immediate suggestibility with minimal overt effort. The Chicago School was one of the first to promote auto-suggestion as a scientific method for influencing health and behavior through repeated, self-directed affirmations. Parkyn taught that focused mental repetition could shape physical and emotional conditions by acting directly on the subconscious. Parkyn distinguished auto-suggestion from hypnotism by emphasizing voluntary, internal influence rather than external control. The method required concentration, emotional conviction, and consistency.
Diploma and degree of Doctor of Psychology The Chicago School of Psychology conferred the degree of Doctor of Psychology to students who completed the full course of instruction in Suggestive Therapeutics and passed an examination prepared and approved by the school's management before receiving their credential.Suggestion Magazine v4, advertisements 1900 In an era when the organized medical profession, often referred to as the "medical monopoly," was actively lobbying to limit or eliminate drugless healing practices, the Chicago School's credential became especially significant. Conventional physicians viewed practitioners of suggestive therapeutics as a direct threat, since it was producing notable results in functional and nervous disorders that traditional medicine struggled to treat and that made up a substantial part of their clinical work. As a result, graduates required a credential able to withstand scrutiny from medical boards and licensing examiners.Cato Institute Policy Analysis No. 246: The Medical Monopoly: Protecting Consumers or Limiting Competition?